


the only roads are cul-de-sacs

by edgaristheoneinthehole



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Aspirin Poisoning, Codependency, Concerned Ryan, Espionage, F/F, Fluff, Genderfluid Character, M/M, Manipulation, Multi, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Paranoia, Possible Codependent Relationship, Ryan-centric, commitment issues, not between ryan/gavin and not romanticized
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-04-14 03:33:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 21,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4548687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edgaristheoneinthehole/pseuds/edgaristheoneinthehole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Agent Ryan Haywood gets roped with Gavin Free, a new Agent, and it's all downhill from there. (<em>Very</em> downhill.)<br/><a href="http://8tracks.com/youremyk/through-the-blood-and-wreck-i-will-fight-him">trackmix for this fic</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. don't be blinded by the lies in your eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is going to be an adventure, let me tell you. i promised myself i'd never write a chaptered fic ever again.  
> [crossposted on tumblr](http://blackkristin.tumblr.com/post/126408629460/the-only-roads-are-cul-de-sacs)

Ryan had worked for R-GT for three years. In those years, he’d learnt that knowing information about his co-workers, to the point of  _too much,_ too  _personal,_  was considered normal in the spy organization. Ryan tended to not join in on that habit, privacy issues from his civilian life making him feel too weird about it (that wasn’t to say he didn’t  _know_  things about his co-workers, he just didn’t search it out).

Ray and Michael knew that and, as his friends, always told him new gossip when they found out something important (some of which, Ryan didn’t even want to know  _how_  they found out).

It was odd; how those two had latched onto him the moment he began working for R-GT, but Ryan had been too new -- too trusting -- in the beginning to question it and as time went on, he felt it too awkward to ask (that was probably not a good quality for a spy, huh?).

“So, like,” Ray was saying as Ryan walked towards the two partners in the hallway, intent on getting to Geoff’s, the department leader’s, office as quick as possible. Of course Ray and Michael were on their way back. Just his luck. (Ryan found that he didn’t mind that much. Having friends was nice.)

“Ryan!” Michael faked astonishment, cutting Ray off, hand flying to his chest, “didn’t expect to see you here! It’s been simply  _forever_  since we last saw each other!” It’d been an hour.

Ray shot an annoyed glance at Michael, but was quick to join in on the dramatics. “How’re the kids?” he asked earnestly, “is little Timmy still stuck in the well?”

Michael turned towards Ray, forgetting Ryan in his shock, “You can’t just ask people if their kids are still stuck in a  _well_!”

Ryan joined in, tone as deadpan as he could make it, “Yes, his last punishment is still ongoing.”

Ray shot a disgusted look towards him, muttering something probably insulting under his breath, while Michael gasped overdramatically, hand over his mouth and eyes wide, “You’re a horrible parent,” he then added, mock-whispering, “we need to call Social Services on him, Ray.”

“Yes,” Ryan agreed, voice still deadpan, “let’s call Social Services on my non-existent child.”

Michael nodded, smile almost forming, just as Ray started laughing and soon after all three of them were in near hysterics, laughing outside Geoff’s office. The owner of said office was quick to open the door enough to yell a few choice -- and swear-filled -- words at them, before closing the door with a loud bang. Unfortunately, it made things worse. Ryan was almost certain he could hear Geoff’s loud sigh from outside the office.

As things were calming down -- to be fair, it didn’t last that long either -- Ray moved towards Ryan, casual in the way that set Ryan on edge instantly, and draped himself over Ryan’s back, sighing contently as Ryan looked at Michael in confusion.

Michael shrugged, either not caring or not seeing a point in telling, and moved closer to them as Ray’s fingers found themselves inside of Ryan’s front pockets.  “Hey, hey, no,” Ryan was quick to reprove, “no pickpocketing me. Again.”

Ray sighed, disappointed, and moved away, probably already having the object he wanted. (Ryan checked later, he’d taken Ryan’s lighter. Again.)

Michael talked as Ray moved back to his partner’s side, probably their tactic to distract him, “There’s a new recruit.”

“Oh?” Ryan asked, “and why are they important?”

Michael pat Ray’s arm absentmindedly once he came within reach and Ryan had to stop himself from raising an eyebrow. Why was Michael worried? About a  _recruit_?

“The asshole hacked into our systems and rearranged everything,” it was clear that part didn’t matter to Michael  _at all_ , “he made some dicks with the files, it was pretty hilarious.”

Ray looked more amused about that than Michael did, the difference became even more clear as Ray continued with the story, “He changed Michael’s name to ‘Vinny’. He’s still mad about it.”

“Three agents have called me Vinny today,” Michael added with a dark look towards Ryan, “And three have had their arms broken.”

Ryan raised his hands in surrender. It still didn’t pacify Michael so he changed the subject, “So how’s he a recruit after that?”

Ray snorted, glancing towards Geoff’s office, “You think they’d let a hacker capable of doing that  _unnoticed_  go? He practically sent himself an invitation to join RG-T.” Ryan would  _never_ get used to how agents pronounced RG-T as ‘right’. They looked at  _Ryan_  oddly when he said it how it was written.

“He’s also British,” Michael said casually, though his fists tightened, “most people think he’s a British spy and he’s really shifty when explaining it. About how he’s  _now_  a British spy or whatever.”

Ryan tilted his head, thinking for a second, “Like, his nationality?”

“I don’t fucking know, man. He was annoying so I got the hell out of dodge.”

Geoff opened the door to his office again, proving he’d been listening in the whole time, “ _Someone_  understands him that isn’t Gus or Farmahini? Thank god. Haywood, you’re helping me.”

Wait, what.

 

* * *

 

So that was how Ryan found himself in the interrogation room, sitting across from the newest recruit. Screw you, Michael and Ray. He didn’t even remember anymore why he was going to Geoff’s office in the first place.

The British man Geoff had explained was Gavin Free waved at him for the third time. He seemed determined to get Ryan to wave at him back so Ryan did. He didn’t even know what he was supposed to be  _saying_. Screw you, Geoff. Boss or no, Ryan was going to find some way to make Geoff’s life miserable.

Gavin nodded, clearly content now that Ryan had indulged him.  _God,_  this was so awkward.

“Before you,” the Brit started and Ryan found himself genuinely surprised by the accent (he was such an  _American_ ), “I got these, like, super burly guys. I thought that your whole organization was filled with them.”

Ryan scoffed. “You so did not.”

“I did!” Gavin leant forward.

“You saw our agent files. There are some pretty  _non-burly_  people in there.” Like Meg, who was 5’1”. (Ryan liked training with her, she couldn’t beat him hand-to-hand, but she was better with guns and her times at pretty much everything were better than his. The only one able to beat her times was her girlfriend, Ashley. Ryan was barely third on the leaderboard on good days. Most days he was stuck on fifth.)

“That doesn’t mean I looked at them other than to monkey about with them, though,” Gavin countered, seemingly delighted that someone was humouring him.

“That is false and you know it,” Ryan frowned in as stern a manner as he could.

Gavin shrugged, indifferent, leaning back on his chair. “If that’s what you believe.”

“I believe the truth,” Ryan retorted.

That seemed to interest Gavin, who leant forward once again, asking, “How do you know though?”

“That it’s the truth?” Ryan shrugged, “I have good instincts.”

Gavin’s delighted face was back. “So what do your instincts say about me?”

Ryan  _looked_  at him, looked at the new recruit with the bags under his eyes, though they were shadowed by the twinkle in his eyes, looked at the carefully styled hair and the clothing he clearly didn’t feel comfortable in and his first thought was: nonthreatening.

But then he remembered the fact that the man had casually hacked into one of the most guarded systems in the world (RG-T practically boasted that) just to get an invite into the organization, how he’d changed so many things around and edited so many files that  _no one_  knew what he’d read or stolen and told the man, without a single speck of doubt: “You’re a threat.”

Gavin frowned and Ryan felt smug at the victory for all of three seconds before a smile overtook Gavin’s face.

Director Hullum entered the room a few minutes later to tell Ryan, who was glad to get out of the room with the strange man with the even stranger smile, that he’d be taking it from there.

 

* * *

 

Ryan saw Gavin again two days later, Gavin now a full-fledged (well, kind of) Agent of RG-T.  He had level one clearance, which meant he could do practically nothing.

“Ryan!” he exclaimed, moving away from the wall he’d been propped up against, like he  _hadn’t_  been waiting for Ryan to show up.

Michael and Ray, who walked on the right side of Ryan (they’d planned to go play some mini-golf in one of the training rooms), looked at Ryan with an  _odd_ look, like they were blaming _him_  for the new Agent talking to him.

“Yes, Gavin?” Ryan asked, long-suffering.

Gavin walked closer, until he was a few feet in front of them, and informed them, “Director Hullum has assigned you as my,” he paused, “handler?”

Ray snorted, muttering something about handjobs but no one paid any attention to him.

Michael answered Gavin when Ryan didn’t (honestly, he was hoping that ignoring Gavin would make him go away), “Do you know what that means?”

Gavin shrugged, “He’s in charge of me?”

Ray snorted even louder, even Michael coughed to hide laughter. Honestly, those two were  _children_.

“I like this one,” Ray said, smiling, “don’t break him with your absolutely enormous dick, yeah?”

Michael nudged his partner with his elbow, humming in amusement, “And how would you know?”

Ray huffed, “I get around.”

“You can do so much better than Ryan, though.”

Ray grinned, soft and easy, “I do already.”

Michael rolled his eyes, smiling, “Yeah, yeah, save it.”

Those two were disgustingly cute and Ryan looked at Gavin, looking at them all curiously, and asked him, “Want to join us for minigolf?”

He was only doing it to get a buffer between himself and the couple but, hey, competition was nice and he had to get to know his new charge. He was going to lose spectacularly anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a way the scene could have gone but i decided gavin was too ooc:
> 
> Gavin moved closer towards him, until he was just inside his personal bubble and he _had_ to have been doing that on purpose. “Director Hullum has assigned you as my, _ah_ ,” the little shit was going to say something that was going to make Ryan want to choke him, he could just see it, “the one in _change_ of me.”  
>  He even had the gall to glance at Ryan’s lips afterwards. His little smug grin once Michael _lost his shit_ next to Ryan told him he was, in fact, just fucking with them (Ryan wondered how the conversation would have gone if they would have been alone and then quickly tried to forget that line of thought).  
>  “You, my friend,” Ray said, “are going to fit _right_ in.”  
>  Michael gasped out, “Yeah, everyone wants to fuck Ryan,” before laughing some more and Ryan couldn't tell if he was supposed to be offended or not.


	2. bad news, i'm a fuse, and i've met my match

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy. _oh boy_ if this is how you guys are going to react to chapter one, i can't wait until you get to chapter 13. shit is about to go _down_ in chapter 13.  
> [crossposted on tumblr](http://blackkristin.tumblr.com/post/126645208740/the-only-roads-are-cul-de-sacs)

Ryan liked to think of himself as one of the best R-GT had. Sure, being in OFFRED -- R-GT’s group for the best of the best, apparently, Ryan found it a bit sketchy, a spy organization declaring the  _best_  without a care, like it didn’t make them targets if something bad was going to happen -- helped that opinion, but out of most people in it, Ryan thought he knew his limits. And who was  _under_  them.

So it came as a bit of a surprise ( _a lot_ of a surprise!) when he looked at the leaderboard a week after meeting Gavin. Archery was -- and always would be -- a thing Ryan prided himself in. Meg, Ray and Ashley had  _never_  beat his score in archery, though they did in most others.

And his goddamn  _charge_  had. The “FIRST -- GAVIN FREE” was mocking him. It had to be a joke. A  _rookie_  beat his score in archery.

A rookie beat not only Ryan but also  _Ashley and Ray_ , who’d been Ryan’s co-workers for as long as he remembered. And Meg, who Ryan had known less (but he’d known  _of_  her, of her former job at SourceFed, a privately funded mercenary group), but was not in any way lesser because of it.

They’d been working for  _RG-T_  for years! And someone with no training  _beat them_.

(All right, so Ryan was  _maybe_  taking this too personally but, damn it, archery was a thing he’d been the best at for  _so long_ he didn’t know  _how_  to react to being overthrown.)

“Huh,” Meg commentated, coming into the training room at the same time she usually did, “don’t know a guy with that name.” She didn’t sound bothered but Ryan knew she was thinking the same things he was, how a nobody had beat their way into the leaderboard  _over-night_.

Ryan nodded, though he wasn’t certain she’d see it, “He’s my charge.”

Meg laughed, moving towards the obstacle course on the other side of the room, unconcerned, “Quite the protegee!”

“I haven’t taught him anything yet!” Ryan said towards her retreating back, unwilling to let the conversation die down without knowing her opinion on the matter.

“As I said, protegee,” she yelled, without even turning towards him. Rude.

 

* * *

 

The next person Ryan tried to get an opinion from was Ray (and, by association, Michael -- did these two spend  _any_  time apart? Was that  _healthy_?). But as he was, well,  _Ray_ , it didn’t turn out like Ryan thought it would.

“ _Dude_ ,” Ray groaned, annoyed that Ryan had interrupted their marathon of-- Digimon? Maybe? Ryan didn’t really know. Some cartoon with some kind of monsters that didn’t  _seem_  to be Pokemon.

“Don’t you  _dude_  me,” Ryan frowned, trying to imitate a parent’s tone. Michael snorted, but Ray didn’t seem to care, eyes glued to the TV, staring at the unmoving monster’s opened mouth, about to eat one of the main characters. Ryan didn’t really get why he seemed to care so much, there was  _no way_  that blonde was going to die.

“So, why’re you here?” Michael asked, glancing at Ray’s unmoving expression. He didn’t  _seem_  concerned so maybe it was normal? Possibly?

“I wanted to talk to you about the new best score in archery,” Ryan informed them and wasn’t surprised when Michael rolled his eyes.

“You’re one jealous asshole, Ryan,” Michael told him.

Ryan paused, thinking. “Maybe more envious?”

Michael looked at him like he couldn’t believe him. “They’re synonyms.”

“No!” Ryan argued vehemently, “Envy is wanting what someone else has. Jealousy is being afraid that something is going to be stolen from you. I clearly don’t have first place anymore. So I’m envious.”

Ray moved for the first time in a while, shaking his head, “I can’t believe I’m friends with such a huge fucking nerd.”

Ryan wondered why he even put up with these two.

“So, like,” Michael continued the conversation, “what? You’re scared he’s going to beat you at everything now or? ‘Cause let me tell you, he doesn’t even get to  _top 20_  with anything else. Physical ones, at least.”

Ryan knew that. He’d checked, paranoid of his role in R-GT. Gavin was 29 on pretty much anything else (though he was in the top three for all computer-based leaderboards but Ryan didn’t find that all that shocking -- Ryan wasn’t even  _on_  those, his speciality was making certain that the computer-based Agents made it out  _alive_ ).

It still rubbed him the wrong way, how a  _rookie_  could beat so many  _trained professionals_  on his first night but Ryan knew that everyone had their talents. However-- there was a difference between being  _talented_ and fucking-- whatever Gavin was.

Michael sighed. “Why were you ever given a charge, good christ.”

Ryan would like to know that as well. Someone as paranoid as him did  _not_ make for a good teacher.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Geoff,” Ryan said, trying to catch up to his CO in the hallway, for someone Ryan had  _never_  seen work out, the guy sure was  _fast_.

Geoff sighed and stopped enough for Ryan to catch up before starting to walk in the same pace towards-- his office, probably. “Haywood?”

“I think I’ve earned Ryan by now, haven’t I?” Ryan asked, hurrying along.

Geoff  _looked_  at him. “You set my car on fire last week. It blew up and injured three people. Two of them Agents.”

“Okay, first of all,” Ryan defended, “no one knows for sure who did it, the cameras around the area were down. Secondly, they’re all fine. No one was even critical. And,  _thirdly_ , I apologised.”

“People don’t apologise for a crime they didn’t commit, Haywood,” Geoff told him, pace somehow becoming  _faster_.

“Polite people do!” Ryan was practically running beside his CO.

“Right, whatever. What do you want?”

“I wanted to ask who thought it was a good idea to give me Gavin as a charge,” Ryan said and was so surprised when Geoff stopped that he walked at least four paces more.

Geoff looked at him suspiciously. “Are you gonna set their car on fire too?”

Ryan tried to look as earnest as he could manage when he told Geoff, “I didn’t set your car on fire.”

Geoff laughed, “Yeah, yeah, you’re sounding like Joel.  _No, Geoff, I_ didn’t  _staple this guy in the face thirty times instead of shooting him, like I was supposed to. That was someone else. Maybe it was you, maybe_ you’re  _trying to blame me._ ”

Ryan wondered if he was starting to have an expression of awe, as Geoff’s next words were a muttered, ”Note to self, never introduce.”

Just. Stapling in the face. He needed to try it out. After how many staples would someone die? He  _needed to know_. Would they die? No, no, unlikely, not enough to penetrate the skull. Torture maybe, though.

“Earth to Ryan,” Geoff said, “Ryan, this is the station of Austin, ready to kick your ass.”

“Right,” Ryan replied and tried to stop wondering about the amount of staplers in the building. It was harder than expected.

“So, you wanted to know about the British asshole?” Geoff asked, starting to move towards his office once again.

When Ryan nodded, Geoff hummed in thought, “I guess that’d be Joel.”

“Rubin or Heyman?” Ryan asked, though he could already guess. Funhaus -- or the Department of Security, whatever -- didn’t much care for the rest of R-GT. They just kept to themselves and-- did whatever they did every day. (They had sex toys in their offices and Ryan didn’t even  _want_  to ask.)

“Heyman,” Geoff then mused out loud, “which is weird. He never really cares about any of the rookies and where they end up.”

“Oh?” Ryan questioned, but Geoff didn’t elaborate and they walked to Geoff’s office in silence.

 

* * *

 

Gavin was in the fourth training room (the one with the best archery equipment and a decent obstacle course, though Ryan didn’t consider that one even  _near_  the top 10) the next time Ryan went there to  ~~try to beat Gavin’s score again~~  train.

And, looking at his form, Ryan was almost certain that the computer had made a mistake. He was leaning  _side to side_. But, that didn’t change the fact that he hit bullseye. While tilting. And the target was both moving and at the farthest it could be.

How.  _What_.

Was this guy  _human_? Was he a robot --  _android,_ robots were different things  _\--_ Joel had created to mess with Ryan? He wouldn't doubt it, Joel had an odd sense of humour.

“Ryan!” Gavin called, not turning around, “can you get me some more arrows?” he paused, thinking, “the explode-y ones?”

Ryan did get the explode-y arrows -- Ashley had said they were called detonarrows but Ryan thought she was just messing with him -- for him. And he watched Gavin blow up target after target. Silently watching.

“Argh!” Gavin finally exclaimed, “will you stop that!”

“Stop what?” Ryan asked innocently.

“With your,” Gavin flailed his arms around and Ryan had to move farther to not get scratched by the  _touch-sensitive_  arrows that  _blew up_ , “with your creepy staring. At least do something!”

Which was how Ryan ended up blowing up half of the obstacle course of training room four. Geoff didn’t even bother punishing him, just sighed and told him to go on another job before something else blew up.


	3. anything you can do, i can do better

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first chapter that doesnt include raychael in some way i cant tell if i'm disappointed or not in myself yet  
> [crossposted on tumblr](http://blackkristin.tumblr.com/post/126807354215/the-only-roads-are-cul-de-sacs)

Ryan stared at Geoff. “No.”

“No?” Geoff asked, amused.

“No,” Geoff didn’t stop smiling and Ryan just  _knew_  that he’d be forced to give in somehow. But, whatever, he was going to fight  _tooth and nail_  until that happened.

The door to Geoff’s office, located behind Ryan, opened. Ryan refused to look behind him to make certain it was not a threat. He was  _protesting_.

The sound of the door closing was followed by footsteps. Footsteps that got louder and louder until they were right next to Ryan and he glanced at Gavin just as he sat down in the uncomfortable chair. (Was that a tactic by Geoff? To make them uncomfortable? Or was it a budget thing? Ryan couldn’t honestly tell.)

Ryan blinked, surprised to see Gavin wear PJs. Had he just woken up? Was that why he was late to the meeting?

When Ryan thought about it, the last time he’d seen a clock it’d said it was three. Ryan had assumed it was afternoon but, looking at Gavin, it was likely that it was  _not_.

Huh, maybe Ryan should sleep more.  _Try_  to sleep more.

Geoff looked at Gavin, annoyed, “And what’s your excuse this time?”

“It’s bloody-- four in the morning!”Gavin looked at Geoff in disbelief and made an inexplicable sound of outrage.

“That’s no excuse,” Geoff informed him while Ryan looked on, curious of the way Geoff’s eyes had started to look  _fond_. Gavin had spent very little time in the organization and already his CO loved him?

“Yes, it is!” Gavin argued, “why can’t you be a normal person and schedule mission debriefs in the afternoon!”

“Ryan seems just fine with this,” Geoff then turned to Ryan, daring him to argue, “aren’t you, Ryan?”

Before Ryan could even open his mouth to answer, Gavin started arguing again, “Ryan also doesn’t sleep--”

“Buddy, that’s impossible. The guy needs to sleep. Otherwise he’d die.”

Gavin had a determined glint in his eyes, “No way, he’s not human. He’s always training or on missions. I bet he hasn’t even been to his room in months.”

“Fifty dollars,” Geoff told Gavin. Ryan had no idea what was going on.

“Thirty,” Gavin negotiated.

“Deal,” Geoff nodded. They both turned to Ryan.

“What?” he asked, just as lost as before.

Gavin rolled his eyes and Ryan didn’t know how he felt about a guy who didn’t like coffee because it changed him but  _was okay with alcohol_ thinking he was slow, “When’s the last time you went to your room?”

Ryan honestly didn’t remember. He’d been on a three week mission -- which’d ended just two hours before -- and then he’d been called to Geoff’s office. He tended to forget simple things when on missions. Like where his room even  _was_. Number 630 something, maybe?

“I don’t know,” he told them honestly.

Gavin  _deflated_  and Geoff looked stupefied. “Seriously?” he asked.

“Seriously,” Ryan nodded, he then added, “So, mission?”

Geoff coughed, having forgotten about it all, probably, “Right.”

“It’s honestly all so regular I don’t know what to tell you,” Geoff shrugged, “one person -- Gavin -- hacks the terminal, the other -- Ryan -- does something with the guards. Get the info and get out. What more is there to talk about?”

Ryan sighed, suggesting, “How about where to get the info?”

Geoff rolled his eyes, “I’m not gonna tell you that until you agree to take on the job. And, as I remember from before Gavin came, you were very against taking this job.”

He still was, actually. It wasn’t the job itself -- though he didn’t like the boring regular jobs -- it was the fact that it was with Gavin. It wasn’t that he was a rookie -- even a rookie can’t fuck up the regular jobs -- but it was the fact that he just knew that the job was there to check their compatibility with each other. If they got the info they’d be stuck with each other for longer than Ryan had thought they’d be and he didn’t know how he felt about that.

There was the option of fucking the mission up himself but Ryan held too much pride in his work to fuck up a  _rookie_  mission. Ray, Michael, Ash and Meg would  _never_  let him live it down.

So he was there, between a rock and a hard place. He couldn’t even reject the mission, not really. Gavin would just join him on his next one. There was nothing he  _could_  do.

And it fucking bothered him. Why was he being roped with Gavin so much? It had to be Geoff’s work, right? Was he still mad about the car? If it wasn’t Geoff, then who? Joel? But why would Joel care?

Everything sucked and  _someone_  was going to have their car set on fire again.

“Fine,” Ryan said, “yeah, I’ll take the mission.”

 

* * *

 

“This is Red, White And Blue Flag, reporting for duty,” Ryan heard over the comms, seconds before the  _morons, we’re being hacked_  alarm sounded. Ryan had done these jobs so many times, he’d started hating that alarm. No matter who they stole from, it was  _always_  the same annoying beeps.

“Both of our flags are red, white and blue,” he told his mission partner, glancing at the map his multifunctional wristwatch showed him for enemies. They’d split up, one group still trying to find Ryan on the first floor. He was currently on the third one, with Gavin positioned on the fifth. If he ran, he’d be able to reach Gavin’s floor with the group moving up none the wiser, but then everyone would know to go on the fifth floor once they started dropping and his distraction would be for nothing. But he couldn’t let them near Gavin either.

Distraction on the third floor seemed like a compromise.

“Could you make that alarm stop when I say so?” he asked, moving towards the terminal of the third floor. It held no valuable information to them but the mercenaries didn’t know that.

“Yep,” Gavin said, “ _English_  Flag can do that. Until I have to rehack again, if I’m interrupted, at least.”

Ryan hummed, trying to open up the terminal to make it look like he had any idea what he was doing. A quick look at the map showed that the enemies were on the second floor, he had maybe about ten seconds. “Isn’t that still red, white and blue?”

“No!” Gavin said, apparently offended on a personal level, “it’s white and red.”

Right. Whatever. Ryan didn’t have time to argue about that. “Stop the alarm now, please?”

The alarm stopped immediately. Ryan almost had the time to be impressed, but had to move to the other side of the terminal to not get shot at.

“It’s the hacker!” one of the mercenaries yelled.

Another shouted, apparently already knowing who they worked with, “Don't damage the terminal!”

And the chase began.

Regular jobs were honestly so boring. The mercenaries never seemed to realise when they were being played with and, while it made the job easy, it also made Ryan want to  _tell them_ so it’d be more interesting.

After about two minutes of having to slow down so they could see him and leading them around the building, Gavin’s voice came over the comms once again, when Ryan was on the third floor, “Right, problem.”

“What kind of problem?” Ryan asked.

“There’s someone on the fifth floor with me. ”

Ryan swore, moving to a better hiding place closer to the stairs. No. Elevator shaft. Less chance of detection. “Are they close to you? What’s your chance of being detected?”

Gavin hummed, “They’re on the other side of the floor, near the kitchen. It’s unlikely they’ll find me, unless something suspicious happens.”

Of course. Ryan hadn’t accounted for someone getting hungry and leaving the pack. He honestly should have. Should have checked the map more often.

Goddamn it. “I can make it up to fifth in less than a minute, try to be quiet.”

He made it there slower than he’d like but, whatever, he had to deal with the hungry mercenary. The map confirmed he was still in the kitchen, thankfully.

“Oh, by the way,” Gavin informed him, voice strangely gleeful, “this is going to take less than a second.”

Ryan paused, confused, until the loud alarm from before started up again. Gavin had finished the download. And the mercenary had walked out of the kitchen. Seeing Ryan right there. Staring at him. Fuck.

“Fuck you, Gavin,” he muttered, trying to kill the merc before he told the others of Ryan’s location. He failed.

Gavin could just-- shove those flagpoles right up his ass.

 

* * *

 

Meg laughed, seeing his sour look directed towards the leaderboard. Gavin had managed to up him at  _another_  thing. Ryan was starting to miss Ashley. Why was she on a months long mission?

“Come on,” Meg nudged him, “turn that frown upside down and beat his score. Again. For the third time in a week.”

Ryan shot a dark look towards his friend, making her laugh once again.

 

* * *

 

“I bet you thirty dollars,” Gavin told Ryan over comm, “that you can’t kill all of the mercenaries before I finish the hack.”

Ryan snorted, shaking his head, “You really think thirty dollars is enough to make me go against mission parameters?”

Gavin seemed to think about it for a bit, before saying, “I’ll show you how I half your time in the obstacle course if you win.”

…

“Deal.” A pause. “What if I lose though?”

Gavin laughed, “Nothing serious.”

(Ryan  _did_ lose by about three seconds and Gavin’s prize was forcing him to watch terrible films with him the whole day. Ryan didn’t get why it was a prize until Gavin told him that it was to actually see if Ryan was a robot --  _android_ , Gavin,  _gosh_  --  or not. Apparently the results were  _inconclusive_  and Ryan had to join him another time. Ryan didn’t mind. Much. Gavin _did_  get popcorn butter on his pants.)


	4. the beating of your heart is making me bleed from within

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> small change: chapter 13 has been moved to chapter 12 (as i felt like i needed some more space for another topic in the later chapters so to still keep the 18 chapter format, i had to cut something from the beginning) so prepare for pain earlier c; (though, as my plans go right now, chapter 11 will start that arc. still less painful though.)  
> [crossposted on tumblr]()

Geoff was ignoring Ryan again. It wasn’t surprising, he tended to do that every few weeks, but it was longer than usual and Ryan was getting worried that he’d lost one of the only friends he had because of something as  _stupid_  as a car being set on fire. With  _no evidence_  that it was him! Didn’t Geoff know that  _material objects_  weren’t as important as friends?

So-- Ryan sought him out. Only as a way to ensure that Geoff  _wasn’t_  plotting his death,  _of course_.

It took several hours and promises of owning at least three favours to Ray to find out that Geoff wasn’t even at HQ.

Agents weren’t trapped in HQ, Ryan knew that, but rarely did they -- Ryan included --  _leave_. Most of them had no family left to speak of -- probably why they were chosen -- and HQ had everything anyone would ever want in life. With HQ’s location so well-known to Agents,, however Ryan had no idea how rival Agencies -- other countries’ Agencies -- had not attacked them. He had no doubt that some Agents were, in fact, spies to another Agency, even if Gavin wasn’t.

But, whatever, that wasn’t his problem. What  _was_ , however, his problem was Geoff and how to find him.

He didn’t inform anyone of his location but Caleb, who worked at the control room and could see tapes of when Geoff had left, had told him that Geoff hadn’t left alone.

The only times Geoff left R-GT were to watch films -- but never with just one person -- or to get drunk -- less and less lately with Michael (probably because Ray refused to go and Michael was usually okay with that but was strangely getting clingy as of late and Ryan should really look into that). His companion wasn’t Michael, of course, he had laughed at Ryan as he promised the favours to Ray but, with Michael acting so strange, the drinking option was the safer way to go.

Geoff wouldn’t walk too far for a bar, not wanting to stumble all the way back to HQ but he wouldn't go to the closest bar either. Too many Agents around.

Ryan paused and wondered if he should be concerned at his CO being so predictable but set out to the third closest bar -- but,  _god_ , did it even count -- to HQ.

 

* * *

 

Haldjas’ walls were covered in too much purple fabric and the bartenders wore small wings that looked like the free gifts Ryan had seen in Barbie magazines. It looked like an eight year old’s dream.

Why Geoff liked the place, Ryan would never know. He couldn’t even guess. It looked horrendous to him. Even if he  _did_  drink, he wouldn't drink here.

“No, no,” a familiar voice slurred. It wasn’t very loud but Ryan noticed it anyway, as the bar was pretty much fucking desolate. How it was still in business, Ryan had no idea. How it fucking got  _started_ , he didn’t know even more.

Geoff was sitting on what Ryan assumed was supposed to be a barstool -- it  _looked_ like a very small but tall table with purple tablecloth on it --  listening to his companion as intensely as drunk Geoff always did. Which wasn’t much. He was too busy staring at the painting of what Ryan thought might have been  _more fucking fairies_.

“Ten thousand dollars,” his companion continued speaking, apparently correcting something Geoff had said before Ryan had arrived, “for Ray to fuck you.”

Geoff snorted, not moving his gaze away from the painting --  _did that painting just blink_. “Ten thousands dollars for Michael to kill me, you mean.”

The other hummed, apparently realising his mistake, “What if he’s okay with it though?”

Geoff seemed to think about that for a while, “I can’t imagine sex where Ray tops being  _enjoyable_ \--”

Ryan coughed, but the two didn’t seem to hear him, the other cutting Geoff off, “Wait, why?”

“That’d require effort on his part,” Geoff shook his head, “he’d get bored mid-way and start playing with his DS.”

Ryan coughed even louder and Geoff’s friend was the one to turn around and Ryan wasn’t surprised to note it was Gavin. He doubted Geoff knew any other British people from HQ.

“Ryan!” the intoxicated Brit said, perhaps too cheerfully, Ryan was suspicious immediately, “there you are, you dim-- flashlight.”

How drunk  _was_  this guy.

“Hello, Gavin,” he said, watching as Geoff’s friend tried to get up but only got tangled on the tablecloth around his chair and plopped down. He needed a glass of water, ASAP.

Geoff turned around, probably trying for dramatic but Ryan ended up just staring at the purple cloth as it seemingly knotted itself, “Ah, the car burner.”

Geoff didn’t  _seem_  more drunk than usual, but Ryan wasn’t so certain.  _He_  would drink a lot to forget this bar, if he had to come here.

“Ryan!” Gavin repeated, annoyed that Ryan wasn’t paying attention to him, “look at how  _top_  this place is!”

Ryan looked around, from the paintings that seemed to be watching him to the signs in  _comic sans_  and said, “Yes.  _Top_.”

Gavin beamed, happy that Ryan had agreed with him. Geoff, less drunk than his friend, snorted, having noticed the sarcasm.

Or maybe he was just remembering all the disgust in Ryan’s tone when he’d spoken of the place in the past. (It wasn't  _just_  him! Michael hated the place. Though Ray liked it. Ironically.)

“Are you having fun, Gavin?” Ryan found himself asking, to which the intoxicated person in question nodded, though perhaps slower than Ryan would have guessed from his level of inebriation. (Faking? No. Why  _would_  he? But--)

“Meg couldn’t come with us,” he informed Ryan. ( _Ah_. Sadness.)

“That’s a shame,” Ryan replied, “I can guess why, though.”

“Oh?” Gavin asked, reaching behind him blindly for his drink and almost making it fall over the edge.

“Ashley came back today,” Ryan had to start watching Geoff to not be caught staring at Gavin’s mouth.  _That_  would have been awkward. Getting caught staring at  _Geoff_  wasn’t anything new for Ryan.

“Who’s Ashley?” Gavin asked, placing the drink back behind him and Ryan turned towards him again, not wanting to stare at Geoff while having a conversation with someone else. He might sometimes kill for a living but that didn’t mean he was  _rude_.

“Her girlfriend,” Ryan informed him and wasn’t certain if he imagined the calculating glint in Gavin’s eyes or not, It was gone before Ryan could recheck. Ryan  _knew_  he was overly paranoid -- Ray and Michael had a habit of telling him so -- but he liked to think he  _wouldn’t_  imagine up something like that. Guess he’d just have to keep an even closer eye on his charge-- uh, partner.

 

* * *

 

 

Ashley laughed, sitting down on the training room floor with Meg as Ryan stood in front of them, arms crossed. “So, you’re telling me,” she said, sounding even more amused than she looked, “a rookie beat Ryan?”

“In a lot of things,” Meg smiled and Ryan couldn’t even fault her for her giddiness, she’d truly missed her girlfriend a lot and catching her up with the on-goings of R-GT was a long-standing tradition for them, from even before they started dating. Ryan was honored to have been invited to join in, even if Meg did so just to tease him.

Ashley looked at Meg, “Have you met this usurper?”

“Nah, never got the chance.”

Ashley turned towards Ryan, faux-offended, “You didn’t even introduce your new life-partner to your closest friends?”

“First of all,  _no_. Second of all--”

Meg stood up, dusting off her pants and offering a hand to Ashley, pulling her up soon after, “James Ryan Haywood, don’t you even  _dare_  insinuate we’re not your best friends!”

Ryan closed his mouth and followed the two girlfriends out of the room, resigned for them to somehow find Gavin in the first two minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh btw //waves hands  
> haljas is fairy in estonian, my first language.


	5. so for once in my life, let me get what i want

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writers! guess what's happening again this year!! [ragehappy secret santa](http://ragehappysecretsanta.tumblr.com/post/127007558438/ragehappy-secret-santa-2015), is what. i'm helping on it this year too so i'm extra excited!! you should totally sign up, if you want to.
> 
> [crossposted on tumblr](http://blackkristin.tumblr.com/post/127151921380/the-only-roads-are-cul-de-sacs)

It took thirty minutes of staring at the leaderboard for the obstacle course for Ryan to realise that he’d become so used to Gavin being on it, he had automatically imagined Gavin’s name right below his own. It wasn’t there, of course (replaced by FOURTH PLACE -- BARBARA DUNKELMAN), as Gavin was on a mission with Ray and Michael. (Leaderboards reset every week, after all. And Gavin had been gone for  _far_  longer.)

It wasn’t surprising for an Agent to take up a job with someone (or, in this case, people) who wasn’t their partner, but Ryan found himself unbalanced, wobbling on the edge of _something_ , anyway. Hell,  _Ryan_  had taken missions with Ray and Michael. That’d been before Gavin though (B.G. -- wait, no, that was weird, don’t make it weird, Ryan) and Ryan had spent so much time with the guy (though he didn’t actually know how long, a few months, at least?), he found himself having nothing to do with him gone (and Ray and Michael, of course, who usually spent most of the day with Ryan -- Ryan wondered if he was a third wheel and didn’t even realise it).

Most of Ryan’s day was spent trying to top Gavin at  _something_  (Geoff was  _still_  not allowing him near the archery course on the grounds of “fuck you, Haywood,  _no._ ”) or trying to win one bet or another (that was usually more Michael’s area but Ryan wasn’t above trying to win a few bets he thought he’d be able to do). In the beginning they’d been only about missions and scores, but as time went on, they became more ridiculous and more ridiculous, from “if we threw this coin into Ray’s eye, which side would be the one to come in contact with the eye?” -- the answer was neither because Ray threatened to stab them in their eyes with that same coin to see how  _they_  liked it (but Michael  _had_  bet neither, stifling laughter, and he won that particular bet, even if Gavin considered it unfair because he knew Ray most) -- to “who can make Gus yell most with just one sentence?” -- that’d been Gavin, but he’d done so accidentally (apparently he’d vandalized Gus’ office the last time he was drunk with Geoff), just a, “hi, Gus,” had made Gus yell more than when Ryan  _tried_  to make him yell.

Actually, maybe that vandalism  _was_  why Gavin started that bet in the first place. Asshole.

“Ryan!” Ashley said, standing in front of him, mouth quirked up, “stop smiling at nothing and help me hide these guns.” She pointed to her left, where all of the guns were in a -- oh god, _why_  -- pile and Ryan’s heart hurt at the picture.

“Are they loaded?” he asked, not moving closer until he was certain it was safe.

“Yes, Ryan,” Ashley replied, exasperated, “I put a bunch of loaded guns in a pile. Because I have no trigger discipline.”

“Why’re they in a pile anyway?” Ryan muttered as he moved close enough to the pile to --  _carefully_  -- take a gun into his arms, ended up holding the AK-47 like he would a small child.

Ashley didn’t seem to have that problem, holding a sniper rifle like she was ready to drop and shoot at any moment -- Ryan was beginning to doubt they were not loaded.

“You’re always so reverent of guns,” she said, giving him a  _look_  as she moved farther into the room and Ryan followed, not certain what to do.

“That’s because it’s only right,” he defended, “they deserve respect. They help us  _not die_  while on the job.”

Ashley placed the sniper rifle behind a panel on the wall that Ryan didn’t even know existed. “They also hurt and kill us.” She paused, amused, “Just like partners.”

Ashley preferred to work alone, if she could, Ryan knew. If she  _had_  to have a mission partner, her contract -- different from most Agents’ -- didn’t allow them to join her on a mission again. Ryan’d never been a mission with her and he knew neither had Meg, Ashley didn’t mix pleasure and work  _at all_.

Before Gavin, Ryan had been much of the same (it wasn’t like Gavin changed his opinion on partners,  _god, no,_ but he’d grown used to having him along on missions and it was strangely comforting). The only thing different had been that he  _had_  mix pleasure and work, being on missions with Ray and Michael or Meg were  _fun_.

But the paranoid about partners thing? Yes, that was very much still true. Speaking of partners--

“Was I really smiling at nothing?” he asked, trailing after her again to the other side of the room, where she’d undoubtedly hide the AK-47 in a spot he hadn’t noticed once again.

Ashley didn’t even answer, just looked at him like she couldn’t  _believe_  he was asking something so obvious, and Ryan sighed.

 

* * *

 

It took thirty minutes of helping Ashley hide several guns around the room for Ryan to finally ask why she was doing so.

“Meg and I’s anniversary is soon,” she said, like that explained anything.

“That explains nothing,” Ryan told her, watching as she hid another gun.

Ashley hummed. “Did you know that we got together in this room as she shot at me?” he had not, in fact, known that. He was surprised at how he wasn’t surprised  _at all_. These two were  _odd_ , but their traditions always had an explanation, even if it was a convoluted one.

“Why was she shooting at you?” he asked, curious. Certainly, Ash and Meg fought, there was no way they  _didn’t_ , but Ryan had never seen it happen.

“Training exercise,” Ashley shrugged. Ryan’s respect for them was already very high but it went up a notch.

“So who asked out who?” he continued, appreciating her for not mentioning how he was using her as a distraction from his thoughts.

“That’d be me,” she nodded at the hiding place approvingly -- they’d tried out three different places for the handgun already -- and Ryan wouldn’t have ever guessed that a weapon was hidden there, “she shot right below my foot, an inch higher and it would have been my toe, and I asked her out to dinner.”

Ryan had no idea how that was romantic but he didn’t ask.

“So,” Ashley started, glancing at him from the corner of her eyes, “you asking for advice to ask him out?” Ryan thought she needed to tone down the disapproving tone but he appreciated how she was trying anyway.

“Nah,” he replied, not certain if he was joking or not  _at all_ , “that’s what Meg is for.”

Ashley laughed, “True.”

 

* * *

 

He did end up talking to Meg about it, though he didn’t mean to. They’d been playing Halo multiplayer together, when she’d said, “My anniversary was yesterday.”

“Congrats,” he’d replied, trying to get her with a sniper rifle, but ended up being killed by a Warthog by a player on his own damn team --  _was that Ray_. (The chat said “sorry, ry,” a second later and he decided it was, in fact, Ray Narvaez Jr., who was going to die later that day.) (Wasn’t he supposed to be on a  _job_?)

“You came up as a topic on my anniversary,” Meg continued, swearing when he managed to get behind her for a kill.

“I don’t want to join your relationship,” he told her, “as lovely and pretty as you both are, I don’t think I’ll be able to handle Ashley kicking me out of bed every night.”

Meg laughed, “That bed is  _really_  not big enough for three.”

Ryan had actually slept in the same bed as both of them a few times, mostly because they’d spent too long talking and he was too tired to leave, and he always woke up in the middle of the night because Ashley took up too much space on the bed and he fell off. Every. Single. Time.

He was beginning to think she did that on purpose.

Meg let the silence continue until she’d headshot him at least twice in-game, “Gavin is nice, isn’t he?”

“Actually, he’s kind of an utter dick.”

“Yeah,” Meg agreed, smiling, “he is. You still like him though.”

“I don’t know,” he told her and  _meant_  it. Feelings were confusing.

“Going to ask him out?” she asked and Ryan loved his friends, he did, but he wished they’d just back off.

“Not a part of my current plans,” he replied and she dropped the subject, for which he was grateful. If it’d been Michael or -- god forbid -- Ray, they would have prodded him until he blew up and blurted how something that proved they were right. Meg was a little more subtle, she left him to think about the subject until he came back to her and admitted defeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if any of you are ragehappy writers -- what do you you do when you realise that you can only do characters' humour because that's how the videos are and you can't write them being serious at all?? because i had to rewrite that last scene three times and i'm still meh about it.


	6. or is it you're unkind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys, i'm running out of insightful comments (that no one asked for) for the answers to comments. i've started telling stories (that no one also asked for) and soon i'll run out of those too and just start saying "thank you!!!! <333" and, while nice, it's kinda boring and i dont want to do that.  
> also, you guys should really read the comments of this fic because they really talk about the fic and the thought that went behind it a lot. because i like talking about things that no one asked for, i guess.
> 
>  
> 
> [crossposted on tumblr](http://blackkristin.tumblr.com/post/127390187990/the-only-roads-are-cul-de-sacs)

A few weeks after Ryan’s talk with Meg; Ray, Gavin and Michael’s job ended. Personally, Ryan loved the longer missions because he thought HQ and the fact that he  _never left the building_  was just plain sad. He knew that Ray and Michael didn’t really care about the length of the mission, Ray even less so than Michael, who tended to get restless if the mission was a lot of sitting around and doing nothing. Gavin didn’t seem to share any of their opinions.

“It was bloody awful!” he’d said, annoyed, when Ryan’d asked him how the mission went. Ryan’d moved his gaze away from the targets Gavin was shooting with an M16 and raised an eyebrow from where he sat cross-legged on the floor. He would have thought that Gavin would have loved Milan (technically, he wasn’t  _supposed_  to know it was to Milan but Geoff tended to forget that Ryan didn’t know all and just thoughtlessly blurted out info, he didn’t seem to be aware he was doing it).

Gavin huffed, readjusting his grip on the assault rifle, “It was sunny and there were hot birds everywhere,” he glanced at Ryan, seeing if he’d have to explain the slang, and Ryan nodded, showing that he did understand, “and Ray didn’t want to go outside at all. Which meant that Michael wouldn’t go outside for the whole of the trip,” he paused, turning to Ryan, “is that normal?”

 _Thank god_ , Ryan wasn’t the only one to think those two’s relationship wasn’t healthy (he’d say it was codependent but he didn’t  _think_  that their self-worth came from the other,  _hoped_ really). He was beginning to think that he was taking things out of proportion. “Depends on the context,” he answered, though it hurt slightly to turn away his only ally on the issue, “if they were there for fun, it’d be more of a problem. They were on a job though, which is more dangerous.”

He added, just to make certain that his ally wouldn’t drop his concerns, “Michael and Ray have problems with dependency though, so maybe even a small thing to someone else is a big issue to them that they need to work on,” he paused, “if they even know about it. I haven’t brought my concerns up yet, as I don’t have evidence. Just vague concerns. It’s unlikely that if they know about them, they realise how unhealthy it is and that it needs help.”

Gavin was staring at him. Ryan wondered if it was because he didn’t expect Ryan to talk so much of the topic (he was concerned about his friends,  _of course_  he would!) or if he was thinking back to his memories of the couple.

Ryan coughed, nervous, “So, you were saying?”

Gavin blinked, seemingly having forgotten about the topic before Ray and Michael had come up, but was quick to get worked up again. “New Agents can’t leave one of their superiors’ sides.”

Oh, so Gavin had been stuck inside the whole trip, Ryan could understand that. Weeks of being in one place always made his paranoia act up (more than usual), though he doubted that that was Gavin’s problem. He understood the need to   _move_  still.

He’d forgotten all about those rules, actually, because Gavin rarely left his side on the bigger missions. Those rules might be  _why_  that was so. Well, that surely explained why he got so annoyed when Ryan didn’t want to go to a bar with him. (Ryan didn’t think he’d ever been in a bar for  _fun_. It was always either a job or trying to find Michael or Geoff.)

“Come on,” he said, moving to stand, “let’s play something on the XBox, make you lose some of those post-missions jitters.” Gavin’s hands had been slightly shaking when he’d been shooting, Ryan had noticed, not enough to miss the target but enough to not get the score he usually did.

Gavin didn’t appeared phased by the request, but he cleaned the gun a little bit too fast (like he was showing off but Ryan knew he wasn’t, why bother showing off to someone who knows most, if not all, of your weaknesses?), so Ryan thought he seemed grateful.

 

* * *

 

Ryan had not seen Michael or Ray since they came back, when they’d crashed into him, faux-sobbing, yelling about how much they’d missed their precious husband (who was also cheating? was that why they were sobbing? Ryan wasn't really paying attention because Gavin was making faces at Ray and Michael’s backs), and, after a few suggestive winks, told him they were going to bed, inviting Ryan along. Ryan had rejected the offer, as Gavin had told him that they needed to play Minecraft  _right then and tehre_ and that he’d found a game where he was better than Ryan at. (He had indeed won but Ryan  _knew_ he’d cheated -- of course he did, he was  _Gavin_.)

The pair of them never went a day without bothering Ryan  _at least_  once. Ryan was beginning to think that Gavin had told them of Ryan’s concerns and that they’d alienated him, seeing him as a danger to their relationship.

He couldn’t tell if he was more concerned or annoyed. They’d spent years being each other’s friends and they cut him out  _just like that_?

 _Unbelieveable_. Ryan wished he could be angry at Gavin, but it wasn’t like he  _planned_  to ruin the friendship between Ryan, Ray and Michael. He had been just as concerned as Ryan was. Well, knowing Gavin, a lot  _less_ , but he  _was_  still concerned.

But Ray and Michael  _did_ find him three days after no contact. For any of their friends. Ryan would have been less concerned, had he not thought that Gavin had told on him. They tended to fall off the face of the Earth sometimes.

“Ryan!” Ray beamed and it was so obviously fake that Ryan wondered if they were going to lead him somewhere quiet to kill him. “So, guess what we did for the last three days.”

Ryan looked at them, moving his eyes from top to bottom, finding no blood anywhere and nothing changed. “Slept?”

Ray snorted, waggling his eyebrows comically, “Together.”

Michael shook his head, smiling, and Ryan found himself saying, “I don’t think you can have sex for three straight days.”

“Nah, man,” Ray replied, “you’re just not trying hard enough.”

“To what? To die?”

“And what a way to go, Rye,” Michael said, before changing the topic to their last mission.

They appeared to be ignoring what Ryan had said about them and Ryan had always been weak in the threat of losing his friends so he supposed he should too. Until their relationship became  _really bad,_  at least. Right now, they seemed to have  _some_  sort of a network of friends, even if it was shared and not really helpful in any way. But, still, it was something. At least they weren’t  _100%_  dependant of each other. Yet.

 

* * *

 

Gavin had a habit of forcing Ryan, Geoff, Michael and Ray to play Monopoly with him at least once a week, if they could. If one of them was missing, Monopoly night was off. (But if Ashley and Meg were around, they played Cards Against Humanity instead.)

Ray whined, staring at the brown plot of land he’d have to mortgage to pay Geoff, as he’d landed on South Carolina Avenue. “B-but brown,” he turned teary eyes towards Geoff, who looked towards the sky in contempt for the living.

“Buddy,” he said, “fucking-- stop. You don’t even like this game.”

Ray’s expression did a 180, staring at Geoff in a mix of disgust and surprise, “And you do?”

Michael sighed from beside Ray, mortgaging Ray’s space and getting the money from the bank for Geoff.

Geoff was dominating the board that day, followed by Gavin and Ryan. Michael’s only valuable space was Electric Company and he “refused to believe that bullshit” (???), while Ray had both Park Place and Boardwalk but really awful luck. No one had stopped on them in the hour that he’d had them.

Ray sighed dramatically, staring wistfully at his dark blue spaces. He’d have to mortgage them soon. Michael, the banker, wasn’t taking pity on him and cheating him money, like he did sometimes.

“Can we stop now?” Geoff looked at Gavin, “I have a meeting with Matt in half an hour. And I’d like to be drunk before it happens.”

Gavin frowned, “Will I be seeing you today?”

“No?” Geoff asked, clearly confused.

“Okay then!” Gavin nodded and as soon as the first word was out, Ray was across the room, already slamming the door behind him. Michael sighed, jogging to catch up with him, leaving the door wide open instead of slamming it. Geoff shook his head and followed after them, muttering something under his breath (it was probably insulting, knowing Geoff).

Ryan, having nothing better to do that day, started putting the game back in the box. Gavin didn’t help him, which was nothing surprising.

“Geoff gets pissy when he’s drunk and has had a meeting with Matt,” Gavin said, as Ryan methodically made certain any Monopoly dollars weren’t upside down.

“Geoff is always pissy,” Ryan replied, distracted.

A pause. “True.”

Who the fuck kept putting the dollars upside down. Why did he always have to make certain they were all facing the same direction. Who did Ryan have to  _beat  the fuck up_.

“Is it you, Gavin?” he muttered, “are you the asshole who keeps making my life harder?”

“What?” Gavin asked, apparently having heard that.

“Oh, um,” Ryan stuttered, “nothing. Nothing. It was nothing.”

Gavin hummed, but didn’t press the subject, which was out of character for him. Gavin always wanted to know everything about everyone, but was one of the most private people Ryan had ever met.

Ryan looked at Gavin over his shoulder and was met with a quizzical look. He thought there was calculation behind there was well.

Ryan frowned at him and Gavin smiled in response. Ryan took that as a good sign. Gavin wasn’t planning to kill him, at least -- Gavin didn’t know how to fake a smile to save his life. (Except if he found Ryan’s death amusing? Was it normal to think that about your friends? Wait, Ryan did that for everyone. Normal for  _Ryan_  at least.)

“Michael and Ray,” Gavin started, “you and them have been good friends for years?”

Ryan nodded, picking up the Monopoly pieces, “They decided I was their friend and they haven’t let go yet.”

“What made them decide to keep you?” Gavin asked, curious tone giving away for something else, a hidden emotion that Ryan didn’t understand. Couldn’t even  _pinpoint_.

“I don’t know,” he confessed to his partner, “I never asked.”

“Never?” Gavin asked, astonished.

“It felt too odd, y’know? We’d known each other for half a year before I realised it wasn’t normal.” From the sounds from behind him, Gavin was hiding laughter into his hand. Asshole.

Ryan had to wipe the smile off his face before looking back towards Gavin again, seeing him almost hunched over with silent laughter, occasional squeaks escaping him.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, asshole,” he said, smiling.

After about a minute of constant laughing, Gavin straightened. “Okay, I’m-- I’m all right now.”

Ryan put the lid on the Monopoly box, content with its organization. He stood, stretching, and started walking towards the door when a thought struck him. Meg would be mad at him for not using the perfect opportunity to not ask Gavin out. Gavin was happy and  _he_  was happy and they were  _alone --_ no Ray or Michael around to ruin it.

“Hey, Gav?” he asked, turning towards his partner, who looked at him curiously, “would you be interested in--”  _you can do it, you can do it!_  “hanging out?”

Well. Not perfect. At all. But. Good enough, he supposed.

Gavin looked at the Monopoly box on the floor. “No, like,”  _fuck, this was hard,_  “dinner?”

Gavin looked at him uncomprehendingly for a solid few seconds that seemed stretched out to a full hour, before he seemed to realise just what Ryan had asked.

“No,” Gavin blinked, seemingly still baffled, “thank you.”

Ryan nodded, heart in his throat, and left the room. Meg owed him  _so much_ fucking ice cream he wasn’t even kidding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> almost didn't write this chapter today because i'm excited to have a new pc but decided that, nah, i really should.


	7. for the record, i never wanted this

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> since i got an ask about this, i thought i'd explain it here as well!! reason this chapter was later than usual: i've moved out of my parents house for school and the big city is terrifying and is making my anxiety lose its mind. if you want to be really technical, it's also the fyrtff wip and mods duties but i've had those for a while and it feels cheap to bring those up. also i've been playing dragon age inquisition. that too.  
> plus, i promised at least once a week. it's not been a week yet c; (just 6 days >.>)  
> [crossposted on tumblr](http://blackkristin.tumblr.com/post/127864223335/the-only-roads-are-cul-de-sacs)

Ryan sighed, crouching on top of a very tall shelf. “Where  _are_  you?”

The comm fizzled to life, “About to hack terminal B.”

Ryan looked towards the ceiling, wondering why he even tried, “I can’t protect you if you hack terminal B. Go to C.”

The comm was quiet. Ryan started moving towards terminal B, already guessing the answer. “But I’m right  _here_ ,” Gavin defended.

“You won’t be when the mercenaries come and fucking  _murder you_ ,” Ryan argued, dropping down from the shelf and moving down a hallway, after checking his map for enemies.

He added, “If they don’t,  _I_  will,” and wasn’t surprised when the alarm for a terminal getting hacked sounded.  _God_ , Ryan hated his life.

He wished he could say that it was a post-rejection thing but, truth was, Gavin had always been doing that. Gavin was a lazy asshole, whom Ryan wished he could choke with his bare hands.

“Tell me you’re at least hiding somewhere and not in plain sight,” he said, nearing terminal B and having to hide so the mercs wouldn’t see him just casually walking around. While a great distraction, also a great way to get  _fucking killed_.

“Yep,” Gavin answered, quieter than before, and Ryan guessed that the mercenaries were near by. He didn’t say the comment he wanted to because of the chance of Gavin responding and giving away his position.

But, thing was, Ryan didn’t know how  _well hidden_  he was. He couldn't just  _assume_  that the mercs wouldn’t find him, that was a surefire way for Gavin to die. This wouldn’t be a problem if Gavin had been at terminal C or if he’d told Ryan  _beforehand_  which terminal he was planning on hacking so he could check it out. And now he couldn’t even ask Gavin where he was hidden.

He was  _so_  going to tell on him to Geoff when they got back. Let Geoff deal with the mess.

All right, what was the biggest, most ridiculous distraction Ryan could think of? That,  preferably, didn’t kill him.  _Preferably_ , it would kill  _Gavin_.

Well, he could always just shoot one of them and let the others run after him, but he  _always_ did that. It was beginning to get  _boring_  and Ryan hated being boring.

The building they were currently stealing information from happened to be a factory in past. A  _paint_  factory.

Ryan turned to walk back the way he came, a plan in mind but stopped short. A mercenary who  _hadn’t been on the map before_ , had her back to Ryan. If Ryan made any sort of noise, she was going to notice him.

“Yeah,” the merc said, probably to someone on the comm, “I can't find the other one. Yeah, I’ll keep looking, Miles.”

Ryan started slowly backing towards the door a few feet behind him. It would take him away from the paint plan, but he’d wasted too much time, Gavin might need help by now.

“Okay, first of all, don’t make it weird,” the mercenary continued, “second of all,  _you_  stop right there.”

Ryan froze. So much for avoiding confrontation and making certain that Gavin hadn’t been killed.

The mercenary turned around and-- seemed exasperated? “I’m not with those goons,” she said, hiding a bit of black hair under her hat, “I’m a spy. Like you. Technically.”

The uniform seemed exactly like the ones the mercs used, so Ryan didn’t blame himself for assuming (she even held herself the same!), but it did explain why she wasn’t on the map. It didn’t, however, explain what Agency she was from or how much of a threat she was to him, the mission or Gavin.

Fuck, Ryan  _really_  hoped that Gavin had a great hiding place.

“B-OWN,” she said it like ‘bow’ (what was with countries and saying words  _wrong_?), but Ryan could assume the writing from all the times the two Agencies had clashed, like their countries did. All countries, theoretically, had an Agency. Ryan didn’t know almost all of them, but he’d heard Ray and Michael complain about a few fucking up their missions.

“Are you actually American or is it a fake accent?” he asked, curious.

She laughed, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

She then sobered and looked at him, “Those mercs might not be  _with_  me, but they  _were_  hired by me. If you don’t listen to what I’m saying and then do me a tiny little favour, your partner is going to die. They might not know where he’s hiding, but I sure as hell do.”

Goddamn it.

“All right, I’m listening,” Ryan replied, watching her more closely.

“Don’t worry, it’s not betrayal in any way,” the B-OWN spy said, turning around, “follow me, why don’t you?”

Ryan debated attacking her but decided against it, he didn’t know the extent of her abilities. If he didn’t kill her on the first try, she had time to give Gavin’s location away. So he followed.

“Smart choice.”

They walked towards the part of the factory Ryan had thought paint would have been in. He wondered if it was a coincidence or if they had a mental evaluation of him. If they did, R-GT was quite screwed.

“As I was saying,” she didn’t even look at him, just seemed to be looking for something in the rooms they walked past, “I just need you to send a message. To your leader, a Mister Hullum, yes?”

She didn’t allow him to answer before continuing, “He’ll of course ask for our motive so say that we don’t  _expect him_  to say yes, we just need proof that our actions to follow were justified. We’d rather not start a war, you understand. Makes it harder to find jobs. Hell, maybe he won’t want one  _either_  and we won’t have to do what we have planned and get what we want peacefully.”

And, if it did happen, they knew from their mental evaluation that Ryan wouldn’t lie to save Hullum’s hide. If it’d been Geoff, sure, but he didn’t know Hullum and, as such, didn’t feel a need to protect him. His mistakes were his own. B-OWN was craftier than Ray and Michael’s stories made them out to be.

“Aha!” she said, pointing into a room Ryan couldn’t see, “there’s some paint there. Now, I expect you to tell your leader this:  _we want him back_. He’ll know who.”

She shrugged, looking casual, “And if you don’t, we can always just arrange another  _meeting_  and, this time, your partner won’t make it out alive. Y’know how business goes, sometimes hiding places are a little bit too indiscreet.”

If she wasn’t an enemy, Ryan thought he would have liked her. As it was, he was only feeling threatened and annoyed.

Well, he  _did_ have paint now.

 

* * *

 

Ryan sought out Geoff a few hours after arriving at HQ. Geoff was, of course, with Gavin, drinking.

“Geoff,” he said, feeling a bit too jittery to joke around, “ _Geoff_.”

Geoff turned towards him and an expression of annoyance turned into concern fast enough for Ryan to wonder how he looked like. “Yeah, buddy?”

“Which office is Hullum camping out in this week?”

Geoff looked at him, concern still prominent on his face, and offered to take him there. Ryan, not certain if he even knew most of the building, thanked him. They left Gavin alone, staring at them with an odd expression on his face. Ryan tried to think of a name for it but left it at being drunk and not processing things, not being able to look at Gavin without feeling both the sting of rejection and concern for his welfare.

Geoff didn’t speak on the way to Hullum’s office, for which Ryan was grateful. He didn’t however, stay quiet the whole trip, coming to a pause in front of an office Ryan assumed to be Hullum’s. “Are you okay?”

“Me? Yeah, I’m fine,” Ryan nodded, which was true. Gavin was the one in danger and Hullum was the one in trouble. Ryan was just stuck in the middle, trying to not let the worst come.

Geoff looked dubious but still opened the door to the office with a keycard, letting Ryan enter first and then following after him, letting the door close with a quiet sound. (Ryan had totally forgotten about those, holy shit. How  _did_ he plan to get inside without Geoff’s help?)

 

* * *

 

As expected, Hullum did seem concerned. Not enough to do what B-OWN wanted him to, but he  _was_  concerned.

“Ryan?” Ashley asked, but he played her no mind, trying to wrap his head around the fact that Hullum was  _letting_  B-OWN’s plan start.

“Ryan, I’m going to throw this handgun at your face,” Ryan looked at Ashley, who didn’t appear to have any weapons on her, but he didn’t doubt that she did.

“You aren’t allowed to bring weapons to movie night,” he told her, accusingly.

“No, Ryan,” she replied, smiling, “ _you’re_  not allowed to bring weapons to movie night.”

Rude.

“You’re rude,” he told her.

Meg and Ashley had been on a mission for weeks again -- separate ones, of course -- and invited him to movie night with them. Probably because they were going to grill him on the rejection-- confession. They didn’t know about the rejection, as far Ryan was aware. Gossip was, however, a big part of RG-T so maybe they had heard something? Ryan could never tell with those two.

“Guys!” Meg called from the kitchen, “we don’t have ice cream.”

Ashley turned towards Ryan, as accusingly as Ryan had just moments before, “You. Broke into our room. And ate our ice cream.”

Ryan shrugged, having no explanation that didn’t just scream “I’m pathetic and human,” at them.

Ashley kept eyeing him, even as Meg walked into the room, carrying a bowl of popcorn and some sort of chocolate bar, which she somehow managed to throw at Ryan, despite both of her hands holding the bowl.

Oh, hey, dark chocolate. The other two didn’t like it, so they had to have bought it just for him, which was flattering Also, concerning, Ryan didn’t think he’d told them he prefers dark chocolate.

“Right, guys, what are we watching?” Meg asked, sitting between Ashley and Ryan, so she could share the popcorn bowl.

Ryan shrugged. “Fantastic four?”

Meg and Ashley looked at him judgingly, “It wasn’t  _that_  bad!”

“It was,” Meg nodded, “it  _was_  that bad.”

Ashley hummed, “I’ve never seen Matilda.”

“What?” Meg gasped, “we are seeing Matilda right now.”

That was a  _total lie_ , they’d seen Matilda at least three times during movie nights. But it was comforting and Ryan didn’t argue, setting in to watch the film.

 

* * *

 

 

Ryan needed to find Ray for advice to beat a dragon in Dragon Age Inquisition, so he set out to find him. Ray wasn’t in his room nor Michael’s, neither of them were in any of the training grounds. It was almost as impossible as beating that  _stupid fucking dragon._

Fuck you, DA:I.

“Ryan!” someone called, “we’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

Ryan turned around and was surprised to note that Ray wasn’t accompanied by MIchael but instead Gavin.

“Yes?” he asked, blinking, momentarily forgetting his frustration at impossible video games on  _casual difficulty._

“Right, so, can you do that thing where you,” Ray made several hand gestures Ryan didn't understand but took as sexual, because it was the most likely option.

He squinted. “I don’t have a buttblug with a tail at the end of it?”

“What?” Ray asked, “ _what_?”

Gavin seemed confused in the same way. Damn it, plan B. Make it seem like a joke.

“What do you want, Ray? I’m not gonna borrow a cockring to you either,” Ray looked horrified, while Gavin was holding back laughter.

“You have a cockring?” Ray finally said, “and you’re  _not_ whoring it out? Ryan, that’s just bad for business, think of all the money you could get from deprived Agents.”

“And get diseases when I use it myself? I think not,” Ryan replied.

Gavin was refusing to look in his direction but Ryan couldn’t even imagine if it was the mental image or the awkwardness after the rejection rearing its head.

Maybe both.

Probably.

“Right, what did you want?”

Ray nodded, trying to look like a wise old man, with his fingers laced and a ridiculous look on his face, “Teach us your ways,  _master_. How do you make such good omelettes?”

Oh, he hadn’t been expecting that.

“Sure, why not?”

(Gavin didn’t look at him until he tasted the omelettes, when he turned towards Ryan with wide eyes and complimented him. It was the first thing he’d said to Ryan’s face since the whole mess began and he didn’t know he was smiling until Ashley commented on it to hours later, telling him to tone it down a notch, people thought he had killed someone and got away with it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the plot is starting to begin. :D


	8. i’d probably still adore you with your hands around my neck, or i did last time i checked

Gavin made a loud distressed tone, Ryan just  _had to_  laugh at. "Payback, bitch!" he yelled cheerfully, watching as Gavin flailed about, trying to get his character in a racing game to move forwards. Ryan was blocking him with his own character, knowing that he wasn’t going to win anyway. So, naturally, he was screwing Gavin's chances as well.

"I didn't do-- anything, you moronic, bloody git!"

"You do something every day, Gavin," Ryan told him pompously, to which Gavin hit him in the face with a flailing hand.

"Gavin, I'm going to punch you. In the face. With my fist," he told Gavin, to which Gavin threw a hand at his face again.

"Gavin," he admonished through laughter.

"Yes, little pisspot?" Gavin asked innocently.

Ryan shook his head, saying, "Now you've done it," before bouncing.

Gavin's shrieks echoed throughout Ryan's room.

 

* * *

 

While Ray and Michael seemed to have taken a liking to Gavin, no one could top Barbara's. She seemed to be incredibly fond of the asshole. Why? Ryan couldn't even guess. (Or, y'know, maybe he was lying. Maybe. Just maybe.)

It wasn't odd to see Barbara hanging around Gavin, telling him stories (often with Ray, Michael and/or Ryan the butt of the joke) or teaching him ways to beat Ryan's scores.

Ryan was beginning to think that Barbara had something against him.

"Barbara," he greeted her, cutting her off in the middle of a sentence.

"Hi, Ryan," she replied, "how're you?"

"Better now?" he tried.

"Good try," she said, turning back to tell Gavin the rest of the story.

Gavin tried to smile at him, probably trying for a  _"what can you do?"_  smile, but ending up smug.

 

* * *

 

"Gavin, I'm warning you," Ryan said,  _"Gavin."_ Gavin gave him a cheeky grin. Bastard.

"Gavin, I'm going to murder you," Gavin just kept advancing, holding his bloody hand out towards Ryan.

"Gavin, I'm wearing a white dress shirt, you're not going to ruin it and people are  _going to notice you just killed someone_ ," sure, he had a suit jacket to put on, but he'd rather not leave things up to chance. If even one person noticed the blood, they were screwed. Or, like, maybe only a little bit screwed. Ryan doubted fancy parties such as these had many -- well-trained -- bodyguards. Usually, they tended to only be able to take down normal people, not Agents. The only bodyguard-turned-Agent (aka such a good bodyguard RG-T  _had_  to have him) Ryan could think of was Blaine, who was able to stop Barbara's attempt at assassination.

"No, Rye," Gavin corrected, "they're going to notice you killed someone.  _I_  am spotlessly clean." Bastard.

“Gavin,  _no_ ,” and there was Gavin’s bloody hand on Ryan’s shirt. Leaving its mark. Which was going to take  _forever_  to wash out, goddamn it.

Ryan looked up towards Gavin slowly, saying, “If you’re not in the car by the time I get on my jacket, we’re going to have a fistfight in the middle of this fancy party.”

(They did, in fact, have a fistfight in the middle of that fancy party, but it wasn’t because of Gavin’s assholeness. Turned out-- they were set up. Gavin got a bloody nose at the end of the day and Ryan told him it really fit his personality.)

 

* * *

 

It was laughable, how easy it was to find Gavin, a  _spy_ , in a building. Just ask Michael which direction he went in, promise not to murder Gavin ( _but if you do, do it painfully?_ ), and be on your merry way.

Meg would have liked the challenge but whatever. Easy was nice sometimes.

She found him in Geoff's office, drinking the owner's bourbon. Meg admired his courage. Maybe not  _stupidity_ , knowing how much Geoff liked him.

“Dude,” she said, staring at his tilting body in Geoff’s chair, “if you fall and get blood on the floor, Geoff is going to kill you.”

Gavin waved a disinterested hand in her direction. “It’s all alright, innit?”

“Not if he murders you, no,” Meg disagreed, “poor Geoff is going to cry because of  his lost bourbon.”

Meg moved closer to the table, as Gavin continued his previous trail of thought, “I mean like-- life. It’s all alright.”

Meg looked at the almost empty bourbon bottle on the table, different from the one Gavin was drinking from, shrugging and taking a swing.  _God_ , why did all bourbon taste the same?

“I guess so, yeah,” she concurred, “we do kill people and steal for a living though, many would consider that  _not alright_.”

"It's peaceful," Gavin agreed.

"Is that going to change?" Meg asked, looking at Gavin more carefully. Not many subscribed to the theory that Gavin was a double agent, not anymore, not after everything he’d done over the year (well, almost a year) he’d been at RG-T, but Meg couldn’t just assume them to be false. She was a spy, not hired muscle.

“Everything changes,” he slurred and Meg couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t answer, didn’t give away his secrets, even when drunk. Either it was accidental, he was faking or someone had taught the guy  _well_.

Maybe he’d let secrets slip if she asked something a bit more  _personal_. “Like your relationship with Ryan?”

Gavin blinked, clearly not expecting that question, drunk mind trying to process it. “He’s lovely,” was all he said.

Meg had been expecting denial, honestly. She still didn’t know why Gavin had rejected Ryan, but she’d assumed it was some sort of in the closet thing (she felt like there  _wasn't_  a time she didn’t know she was bi due to a open minded parent, whod sat her down and told her of different sexualities _,_ but she had helped Ashley come to terms with hers, long before they decided they wanted to date each other, back when Meg was still with SourceFed), she’d seen many Agents who were fine with seducing people they didn’t consider part of their sexuality, yet unable to admit that they liked someone of the same sex romantically -- or, if just sexually, not for a job. Gavin seemed just fine with the fact that Ryan was a man, so something else had to be holding him back. Meg wondered what it was.

“Lovely?” she egged him on.

“And smart. And pretty. And my favourite.” Well, at least it was obvious that Gavin had the same feelings Ryan had and Ryan didn’t just misjudge the situation.

“And where is your favourite right now?” Meg asked, having not seen Ryan the whole day.

Gavin seemed to think about that for a little, “Probably choking one of the guards to the control room.”

“And why is he doing that, Gavin?” Meg asked, more than a little on edge.

Gavin shrugged, “He does things sometimes. That he thinks are the best for everyone, but really they only benefit him.”

“He needs to see Caleb?” she asked, trying to think of some other reason for Ryan to go to the control room, but coming up with nothing.

“Funhaus tested out a new knocking out gas today, but it was too strong. The control room guys don’t know that. If they stay in the room too long, they’ll die. Ryan is trying to  _help_ , but really he wants a copy of Matt’s office’s recordings. He doesn’t know they don’t exist, not where the control room can reach them.”

“And you didn’t tell him that?” Meg asked carefully.

“The control room is important to R-GT, if the blokes there die, we’d have to bring in new blood,” Meg understood that, but she was sort of lost on why Gavin  _cared_  about not having new blood.

“You’re not helping?”

Gavin shrugged, “I told him what he needed to know. I helped.”

So  _Ryan_  was trying to get to his goal, which he couldn’t do because Gavin didn’t give him enough information, and Gavin was clearly already close to his goal, letting Ryan do the dirty work.

Maybe it was better they never got together.

 

* * *

 

 

“Rye!” Ryan heard, after  _hours_  of dealing with a very pissed off crowd. The Funhaus guys seemed to like him more though.

Ryan turned towards Gavin, who seemed to be very tipsy, if not absolutely smashed. Ryan could never tell with Gavin.

“Gavin,” he greeted, smiling.

“Rye,” Gavin replied, leaning against the wall, in a move that should  _not_  be attractive, holy shit. Ryan, get a grip. The guy was drunk, drunk people were not attractive.  _Ever_.

“Did you need anything?” he asked, making certain Gavin wouldn’t tip over and fall on the floor. While funny, it would make it very hard to have a conversation with him.

“Anyone die?” Gavin asked.

Ryan shook his head, the lingering feelings of disappointment bubbling back to the surface (where  _did_  they keep Hullum’s videos then?), “Someone hit their head pretty hard and they’re all in the medical wing right now, but they seemed fine, last I checked.”

“That’s good,” Gavin commented, before leaning forward in a mockery of subtlety, “Got what you wanted?”

“No,” Ryan sighed, “it wasn’t there.” He wondered if he’d told Gavin he was planning on looking for Hullum’s videos, but he couldn’t remember more than concern from the memories of the event of Gavin coming to him, asking for help.

“That’s a shame,” Gavin said, before pausing to think, “want to have dinner until Ray and Michael come to us to complain about being left out?”

Was that--

Ryan smiled, pleased and happy, “I’d love to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> about gavin because i know someone is going to ask: yes, hes a manipulative asshole. most of the time, his manipulations (you've actually already seen several and some that don't seem like manipulations at all but are, they'll come out as the fic progresses) are for what he thinks are best. except his idea of best doesn't really include ryan all of the time. poor guy. he deserves so much better.


	9. he dreamt he was a king, safe in his bed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for ODing. no one dies. but it's there.  
> and talk of sexual acts but nothing happens  
> [crossposted on tumblr](http://blackkristin.tumblr.com/post/128909404905/the-only-roads-are-cul-de-sacs)

It took several weeks of dating -- and they were actually  _dating_  now -- for Ryan to realise that they'd never been on a date. The title was  _dating_ , was it not the real thing with no dates? Ryan would have to remedy that.

If only so that no one could tell him his relationship wasn't real (not that anyone would, apparently Ryan had a  _reputation_ ).

Gavin didn't seem to like the idea much when Ryan brought it up. "Why can't we just kill someone instead? You like that, right?" he whined, making Ryan regret even bringing it up. Which was probably Gavin's plan. Asshole.

He put his foot down, "Gavin, we're going on a date. Whether you like it or not."

"Dates require consent," Gavin told him.

Ryan crossed his arms, "Not if I have blackmail on you, they don't."

"That's not consent," Gavin reminded him.

"I know, that's what I just said," Gavin sighed.

Which was how they'd found themselves at a restaurant, Gavin huffing as he ate his "even the  _salad_  is fancy," salad, while Ryan ate a soup so truly great he missed his nana. May her time in hell treat her well. She'd taught Ryan everything he knew,  _no one_  went to heaven after teaching a seven year old how to throw knives into the major arteries. Ryan looked forward to meeting her in the afterlife.

"So," Ryan trailed off, not out of awkwardness (he'd had worse situations with Gavin, honestly), but because he knew it'd bother Gavin. He never seemed to like it when Ryan acted uncertain (it might have been because it was always false, but,  _still_ , Gavin had seen him do worse things than  _act_ ).

"Yes?" Gavin asked, annoyed, pausing from glaring at his salad (god, the look on his face when he'd seen that he'd ordered a salad was  _priceless_ ) to turn towards Ryan. While not exactly a glare, the gaze seemed several times too annoyed for Ryan, Gavin was rarely  _this_  annoyed at him.

"Why don't you like dates?" he asked, more curious about if Gavin would  _answer_  than what that answer would be.

Gavin stopped his glaring enough to glance around the room in an exaggerated manner, one that was unlike his usual joking exaggeration. Ryan knew that the next thing out of his mouth was something to be ignored--

"Would rather I suck you off in Meg and Ashley's bathroom, you biting the fingers I have in your mouth as to not alert them to your state, than this."

\--Or! Maybe not.

But, still, the sudden -- but certainly not  _unwelcome_  -- comment didn't make Ryan forget about the exaggerated glance around. In fact, it was so against Gavin's usual "everyone judges me" attitude that it brought  _attention_  more than it made Ryan forget.

Why glance around and then bring attention to that? Why something so different?

What was around them, was the obvious question, one that Ryan already knew the answer to, his own paranoia would not allow him to be here otherwise.

They had a corner table, though Ryan had given Gavin the seat with the wall to his back. It didn't really allow Ryan to enjoy the evening as much as he would have liked, too busy being on edge, but it seemed to make Gavin relax.

They were surrounded by people. Not  _public transport at 8 am_  bad, but it was certainly not pleasant, being reminded of how they might be in danger every time a waiter moved past the,.

The staff had  _seemed_  clean, when Ryan had looked into their records, having a few parking tickets overall, but Ryan would have not even stepped foot inside a restaurant with a 100% clean staff. But it was always possible that even after his careful, meticulous work, he'd missed something. Something that Gavin was now noticing.

“How’re you liking today?” he asked, hoping that Gavin would give him more clues (if not outright say what was the issue).

Gavin looked at him in disbelief, “You blackmailed me into a date.”

Well, no hints in that, not ones that Ryan could notice, anyway.

“Well, technically,” Ryan started, ignoring the groan from Gavin that followed, “no blackmail was involved. I just told you there might be and you agreed.”

Gavin stared blankly at the guy sitting at the table behind Ryan, muttering under his breath. Probably something insulting. (He wondered if Gavin knew that Ryan felt more at ease when Gavin was looking behind him, knew that Gavin would tell him if there was something suspicious happening.)

“Seriously, Rye,” Gavin said, moving his gaze back to the salad he seemed to hate so much, “we could be shagging right now.”

“Not until  _after_  dessert,” Ryan told him, taking pleasure in the dramatic groan that followed.

(Later, he realised that Gavin had been trying to manipulate him with the glancing, had wanted kick Ryan’s paranoia into overdrive so they’d leave, and they had a long chat about what was okay to do and what  _really fucking wasn’t_.)

 

* * *

 

“So,” Meg said, looking at the TV playing some kind of cartoon that Michael and Ray seemed to be into more than Meg and Ryan were, if the constant yelling from Ray and transfixed staring from Michael were anything to go by.

“You’re dating now?” she asked, side-eyeing him. Ryan thought she sounded concerned but didn’t know why.

Ray let out a loud, “About damn time!” that everyone else ignored. Michael didn’t even seem to realise anything  _but_  the cartoon was happening. Ryan was becoming concerned.

“Yes,” he told Meg, staring at the back of Michael's head. Maybe his first clue should have been how he had thrown himself on the ground and laid there the moment the cartoon started. Ray hadn’t been concerned, however, so Ryan had just went with it.

“Are you happy?” she asked, frowning, and Ryan knew that she knew  _something_ , something she’d rather not share. It felt odd, as she’d not kept secrets from him so obviously before, like she didn’t want to  _say_  but she wanted him to  _realise_  something was wrong.

“I’m quite content,” he told her and wondered if there was cheating involved -- no, she’d tell him if it were so -- or if she had dirt on Gavin, not  _important_  dirt but something someone dating him would find significant.

“That’s good,” she told him, smiling.

“Yo, assholes,” Ray said, a touch of concern in his voice, “can someone help me, like, I don’t know, carry Michael to the medical wing or something?”

Ryan was by his side immediately, “What’s wrong?” he crouched in front of Michael, noticing his quick breath and slack -- if not confused -- expression.

“What?” Michael asked, blinking, “why’re you here?”

“OD?” Meg asked, checking Ray’s eyes as a precaution, though Ray was quick to inform her that he might joke about doing drugs but it wasn’t something he was  _actually into_.

“He doesn’t appear to be hot,” Ryan was quick to inform her and it really showed how concerned Ray was that no joke followed the statement, “breathing is faster than normal, but his attitude sluggish. I’d say even if not OD, it’s  _som_ e kind of sickness and the medical wing is the best place to go.”

Ray told him if he dropped Michael, he’d skin him alive and Ryan didn’t think it was a joke.

 

* * *

 

Apparently it was aspirin poisoning. When they’d told Michael this, writing it down instead of saying it outloud because Michael’s hearing wasn’t the best right then, he’d scoffed, “I don’t use aspirin.” Ray had -- hesitantly -- agreed with that.

“I do though,” Ray told Ryan and Meg, “and I’ve noticed them disappearing recently. I thought I was just-- using them myself.”

“And you don’t  _normally_  notice taking your medication?” Ryan asked.

Ray winced, shrugging, “I don’t-- notice a lot of things.”

Ryan didn’t ask.

“So you think someone was feeding Michael aspirin?” Meg asked, thinking.

“It’s likely,” Ray told her, but he looked nervous, like he was afraid  _he_  was doing it. Ryan didn’t even  _want_  to know at this point.

Meg hummed, “Doesn’t aspirin only dissolve in warm water, Ryan?”

Ryan thought about it, nodding, before adding, “Or coffee.”

Well, they had a likely cause, that was something.

(Later, when he was less dizzy and could hear properly, Michael told them that it was a wild goose chase, as he wasn’t as paranoid as them all, he didn’t give a  _fuck_  where he got his caffeine intake from, he even bought cafeteria food instead of making it.

That was when Gavin crashed into the room, yelling, “My boi!” really loudly and practically tackling Michael. Ryan felt lighter, like he wasn’t as concerned anymore. They’ll be fine. They’re all safe -- Geoff had dropped by earlier -- and they were going to find out what the fuck was going on.)


	10. you can stay with me forever or you could stay with me for now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the first part seems kinda weird? but i'm running late on time so. it's staying. this is what i get for writing on my phone, my style is always over the place at that.  
> [crossposted on tumblr](http://blackkristin.tumblr.com/post/129493125255/the-only-roads-are-cul-de-sacs)

Michael got better. In his words, "Nothing that simple can knock me down." And it  _was_  simple -- it made Ryan wonder if the whole thing was orchestrated as a threat or if they'd gotten Michael to a medical wing too soon, according the plan. The doctor had told them that if the worst had happened, Michael would have fallen into a coma. A way to get rid of him permanently, it was not. But for a time? It was the perfect way to make it seem like an accident. Agents were in a lot of pain most of the time and, as such, a lot of them took painkillers more than they should. Ryan didn't take them himself, too paranoid that someone was going to jump him, but it wouldn't have been against Michael's character, which made him a better target than, say, Ryan. No one who knew Michael would even bat an eyelash.

Ryan wondered who did it. B-OWN? But what'd they gain from it? They had no business with Ryan, not anymore, and he had forwarded along their message so it couldn't have been a threat. If it'd have been one, Gavin would have been the target, especially now that them dating was mostly common knowledge. Rarely did people target platonic relationships when a romantic one was available, out of a misconception that romantic love was more important.

It couldn't have been a threat to Hullum either, as them figuring it out too late would have left the point to be nil.

Unless-- it was a gamble? They didn't care if Michael died, fell into a coma or whatever or not, Michael was just another enemy Agent to them. B-OWN was trusting them to figure it out and if they didn't? Well, it wasn't  _their_  Agent in a coma.

Fuck, it kind of-- made Ryan furious. Fuck you, B-OWN, Michael was as important as any other human. Though, considering they killed and stole as much as R-GT does, maybe they didn't consider anyone as important as them, as R-GT did. Ryan was starting to follow that mindset, but he supposed it was on a matter of time, he spent almost all of his time between missions and staying at RG-T. Their ideals had to stick to him one day.

Ryan groaned, resenting his life, but not the organization who hadn't ever made him feel  _small_ , the thing he would never allow in his life ever again. He'd rather cut all ties with  _all_  of the people he considered most important than allow himself to feel small and weak and inferior. There were just some sacrifices that had to be made for his own mental health -- well, he wasn't  _healthy_ , but he'd rather keep what health he  _had_  -- no matter how much he'd rather not and let the problem fester and grow.

But, it hadn't come to that, not yet. And Ryan enjoyed his remaining time with his friends. It would undoubtedly end some day, Ryan had little concerns of that, but he could enjoy having friends who understood him until then.

“Gavin,” he said, watching the mess that was Gavin trying to cook, as he had for almost an hour, “that’s not how spaghetti is made. At all. At least  _google the recipe_.”

Gavin looked up from the pot, looking annoyed, “It can’t be that difficult, right? I can figure it out.”

“Except the part where you  _haven’t_ ,” Ryan reminded him.

“I have!” Gavin argued.

“Gavin, you just threw a bunch of ingredients in the pot that  _should not be in the pot._ ”

“They’ll add to the taste!”

“No,” Ryan told him, “no, they won't.”

(Later, after Ryan’d told Gavin how to make spaghetti but Gavin still added ingredients that Ryan didn’t approve of, Ryan tasted the food and told him, “It isn’t bad,” just to see Gavin try it, the smug look on his face change to disgust at the taste. Ryan ended up eating all of the spaghetti, while Gavin watched on in revolted disbelief.)

 

* * *

 

Ryan shivered and fully blamed Gavin for it. One hoodie  _wasn’t_  apparently enough to not be cold in Gavin’s room. Why did the guy have to keep his window open at all times? Was he not cold? How did he  _sleep_  with his room being so fucking cold?

“Gavin,” he whined, he admitted that, it was fucking  _cold_ , alright? “Close the window.” He eyed Gavin’s closet, wondering if he had blankets hidden away in there. He vaguely remembered Ray giving Gavin a birthday gift of a monstrous and fluffy orange blanket, they were all  _so tired_  of being in Gavin’s room while it was cold.

“There won’t be any fresh air,” Gavin had the gall to argue, like Ryan wasn’t  _freezing to death_.

“There won’t be any fresh air in your lungs if I choke you either,” Gavin just ignored the threat. Unbelievable.

Ryan stood up, ignoring Gavin’s wide eyes (did he honestly think Ryan was going to choke him? Adorable.), moving towards the closet. Come on, there had to be  _some_  kinds of blankets there. And, after opening the third closet door (why did he have such a huge closet? He barely used  _one_  door), Ryan found jackpot. At least  _six blankets_!

Ryan wound one around himself right there and then and took another one with him back to the couch. Gavin looked like he thought Ryan was going to choke him with  _that_  blanket. No, screw you, Gavin, all of the blankets were  _Ryan’s_  now.

Ryan placed the other blanket over his shoulders, sighing at the warmth. There were some good things about life after all.

Except Gavin, Gavin sucked.

“Are you mad?” Gavin asked cautiously, like he was ready to close the window if Ryan really  _was_  mad at him -- a thing he’d never done as long as Ryan had known him -- and Ryan wondered when he became so weak because his heart just melted.

“Nah, I’m quite happy,” he told his boyfriend, shifting closer to raise the second blanket over Gavin’s shoulder. Gavin didn’t get the first one though. That one stayed  _Ryan’s_.

Gavin made a contented sound and Ryan told himself he wasn’t smiling in happiness. He killed people for a living and he… was a total sap and really loved his boyfriend.

He hid his smile at the thought against Gavin’s cheek.


	11. i couldn't keep up so we cracked down and now everything is worse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [crossposted on tumblr](http://blackkristin.tumblr.com/post/129912032305/the-only-roads-are-cul-de-sacs)

It took everything Ryan had to not tell Gavin the extent of his feelings -- if there was anything Ryan had learnt about his boyfriend, it was that he didn't deal with his emotions well, evidenced by the rejection not that long ago. So he'd have to  _ease_  Gavin into the situation, not dunk his head underwater and hope he doesn't drown. But  _god_  did Ryan want to shout to the heavens about how in love he was, about how he loved his asshole boyfriend so much.

So Ryan kept his mouth shut and Michael seemed to understand, always nonverbally telling him if his gaze on Gavin was starting to become  _too_  adoring.

Sometimes Ryan wished Ray was as understanding though. "Dude," he said as Ryan stared at the place Gavin had been just moments before before Geoff had tackled him and Gavin went off running, Geoff after him. Ryan wondered what he'd done this time.

"Stop smiling and listen to me," Ray continued, tone exasperated but without its usual tint of affection, replaced by seriousness.

"If you don't tell that asshole you like him, he's going to assume you're not serious. And that might hurt a  _bit_  more than him freaking out that you like him."

Michael seemed to disagree, though he didn't voice his opinion. (Ryan could guess why, Ray seemed to want to please Michael at every opportunity since the poisoning incident -- he'd just agree with Michael's opinion straight away in a very  _unlike_  Ray way. Ryan didn't really get why Ray was so  _guilty_ , but it wasn't his place to ask so he didn't. At least Michael was as creeped out by Ray's actions as of late as Ryan was.)

"Ray," he told his friend, "there are few things as scary to Gav as feelings. And at least three of those involve feelings in an indirect way."

Ray nodded slowly, like Ryan wasn't getting the point of the conversation, " _One_  of those things is him feeling trapped in a hopeless situation. He realises he loves you -- which he  _will_ eventually do -- and he's going to feel trapped in a relationship that isn't even serious and break it off."

Ryan countered, "If I tell him now, he's going to panic and leave anyway. Just sooner."

Ray frowned, but didn't agree with Ryan with a muttered, "Well, shit," so Ryan knew he'd have to have the same conversation in the future again.

Michael sighed, looking at the ceiling in a moment of just being  _done_  with his best friend and informed them both, very loudly, "If either of you ever starts dating  _another_  person with commitment issues, I'm going to punch you  _and_  them."

Ryan agreed to the terms on the account that the same rules applied to Michael. They shook hands, closing the deal while Ray looked on, amused, telling them that they can't do the deal without him. That lead to them trying to do a threeway handshake and almost breaking Ray's leg. Geoff stared at them for a solid 30 seconds at the medical wing before telling them that they were fuck-ups at life and that it as a  _miracle_  they were still alive.

Ryan agreed with him.

 

* * *

 

Jobs with Gavin were always a challenge. "No, Gavin, we're  _not_  going to set the room to explode -- no matter how much you and i want it to -- since we need the info from this room. No, it won't be a controlled explosion that won't hurt the terminal, I've seen your explosions. Yes, it will cool, but-- fuck it, let's do it, who cares?" was a surprisingly common conversation. If Gavin didn't suggest the ridiculous ideas, Ryan did and Geoff hated them, being the one who had to deal with all of their messes.

This time, it  _hadn't_  been Ryan's idea. Which was nice, Ryan thought Geoff would strangle him if he did  _something else_  that week.

"Gavin," he stifled laughter, "why do none of the mercenaries have pants?"

Gavin whispered back over comm, "It was either that or their guns, couldn't carry both of them."

"Good choice," Ryan replied, smiling, though he did wonder when Gavin had the opportunity. Shouldn't he be hacking?

But, whatever, it was funny, Ryan didn't give a shit.

"I'll take the assholes on your right first," Ryan told his partner, "Don't scream if you see some junk."

"Don't worry, the only genitalia I scream at upon seeing is yours."

Ryan paused, thinking, "Is that a weak insult or a really odd compliment?"

Gavin laughed as his only response.

 

* * *

 

Gavin had an odd expression on his face. It was one part affection, two parts scared shitless and three parts disgust.

Ryan knew what it meant immediately.

"Gavin?" he ventured, moving closer to Gavin as one would a scared and hurt animal. Ryan guessed  _technically_  that explained Gavin. (Humans were mammals, animals, and Gavin  _was_ scared, though his hurt was more of a part of his personality than anything else, as was most Agents’-)

"Ryan," Gavin replied, tone casual and faked. If Ryan hadn't been able to see his expression, he would have guessed he was fine. It made sense that a computer specialist would put more effort into his voice not betraying him than his expression though, so Ryan didn't dwell on that.

"Want to play Halo today?" he asked, smiling and trying to look unassuming and harmless.

Gavin saw right through it, of course he would, but Ryan had bet on that grounding him to reality. Which didn't happen.

Fuck.

"No, I'd rather go to bed early today," Gavin replied, smiling in that same casual way. It clashed with the look in his eyes and made Ryan wince.

What he'd feared would happen  _had_  happened and he didn't know how to fix it.

"Next week?" he asked, trying to not seem the suffocating boyfriend Gavin had probably feared to end up with. Or maybe not -- he didn't know the cause of Gavin's commitment issues, after all.

Gavin got the calculating gleam in his eyes that he sometimes did, although Ryan could have  _sworn_ it looked more desperate than usual.

"Next week," he repeated thoughtfully.

Ryan didn't like that. Not one bit.


	12. you and i go hard at each other like we're going to war

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which school has literally kicked my ass. the only time i can write is saturday and even that has become so busy i want to die.  
> but, hey, i will finish this fic even if it kills me. ive been in perpetual guilt at not finishing this chapter for over a month  
> [crossposted on tumblr](http://blackkristin.tumblr.com/post/132268703205/the-only-roads-are-cul-de-sacs)

Ryan had been taught that, in the case of an emergency, RG-T did not have an alarm. So it came as a surprise when he woke up to an alarm, telling all RG-T Agents, “Please come in an orderly manner to the cafeteria. I repeat,  _orderly manner_.”

Ryan spent all of 30 seconds wondering if it was test and, if so, which type of test. Of loyalty -- who showed up, despite their feelings of apprehension? Of caution -- who knew that something was wrong and tried to find an answer?

In the end, he decided it didn’t matter, he’d need information anyway. And the only way to get  _that_  would be to go near -- but not  _in_  -- the cafeteria.

So Ryan armed himself, small pistol because they weren't allowed to carry more in HQ, and calmly walked in the direction of the cafeteria. He didn’t look out of place amongst the other Agents moving towards their destination, though Ryan did wonder if they were like him -- information gathering -- or blinding following the voice as they blindly followed the organization.

“Rye!” Michael said, falling into step next to him, “OFFRED has orders.”

“Oh?” Ryan asked, not slowing down. The cafeteria was still the best place to get information and Ryan wasn’t one of the more important members of OFFRED like Barbara or Meg (he wasn’t an Agent with a speciality, not like them, he was just a jack-of-all-trades who was  _really good_  at being mediocre), so it was unlikely the orders had much to do with him.

“Hullum wants us all in one place.”

Ryan hummed, “Conductors of this test then?”

Michael shook his head slowly, “We’re going in the other direction.”

That-- made no sense. Unless it was a test for only non-OFFRED Agents? To see if they’d realise all OFFRED members were gone and if they trusted them? But, still, it was unlikely.

“We’ve  _never_  been together,” Ryan reminded Michael, “because Hullum doesn’t want us to kill each other. Our  _mandatory meetings_  have a rotating crew so we’d all get the info, but wouldn’t all be together. This doesn’t make  _any_  sense.”

Michael’s expression didn’t change, which made Ryan understand that Michael was very much aware of how wrong it all was. “I know.”

He shrugged, “Heyman’s orders though, can’t go against them.”

While Heyman  _did_  have a history of using his senior Agent privileges for his own benefit, they were always petty and small things, like cutting in line or ordering his juniors to not drink alcohol so he’d have more, so Ryan doubted the man was playing with them. He was telling them an order as a senior Agent, one that he’d probably heard from Hullum, and they were expected to  _follow it_.

“Where are we expected to go then?” Ryan asked, finally pausing his stride.

“Hullum’s office, of course,” Michael made a face, “trapped in a small room with all of OFFRED’s members, what is Hullum thinking?”

Yes,  _exactly_. What  _was_  he thinking.

 

* * *

 

Barbara called, “Wait, no!” the moment they walked into the room. The door, which Ryan had been loosely holding open, slammed closed on its own accord. Ryan wondered how it had done so without breaking his fingers.

Barbara frowned, telling them, “Hullum isn’t here.”

Knowing how cautious Hullum had always been with keeping them apart, he’d  _never_  invite them all into an inclosed space and then not show up himself to make certain they didn’t all kill each other.

“Do you think he’s dead  _or_  unconscious?” Meg asked, moving her eyes calculatingly around. Ryan noted she had more weapons than were permitted in HQ, but told himself to not dwell on it -- they couldn’t afford to be anything less than civil to each other.

“Unconscious,” Ashley then explained her opinion, “he’s a great Agent. He wouldn’t go down so easily.”

Ray disagreed, “This is his home turf, whoever did this can’t let the advantage of home turf screw them up. They’d get rid of him and quickly.”

Ryan, wisely in his opinion, didn’t offer the intel he’d been told. Not giving away info was less of an offence than appearing as a traitor during a hostile takeover.

Michael hummed after a long moment of silence, "So, basically, we have no way to see what the rest of HQ is doing and no way to get out of this room."

There was a scoff from the corner, near Hullum's computer, and Ryan turned to see a faux-offended Ray. " _We have no way to see what the rest of HQ is doing,_ " he repeated mockingly, "fucking asshole. I've been keeping an eye on everything since I got trapped here."

Michael huffed, smile playing on his lips, "Excuse me for not seeing someone who is, like, 4 feet tall."

Ray didn't even glance at him, seemingly transfixed on the monitor, "And so the short jokes begin. Y'know, it's not cool to bully people on what they were born with."

"It's bullying year, remember?" Michael asked, gravitating towards the place to the right of Ray.

"No, that was  _last_  year--"

Michael took one look at the monitor before he swore. Loudly. And creatively.

"Michael?" Ryan asked, moving closer as well.

"That fucking-- I'm going to  _murder_  him."

Ray rolled his eyes, "Now you're just being dramatic."

Michael scowled, turning to the rest of the room, “Heyman is still in bed,” which meant he wasn’t the one to order them here, they were all so  _screwed_ , “and-- wait.”

Everyone paid close attention as Michael turned back to Ray, “You’re watching him sleep. I’m boyfriends with a somnophiliac.”

“I am  _pretty fucking certain_  you’ve woken me up with a--”

“Alright!” Gray, who rarely spoke during meetings, interrupted, “let’s not  _go into_ that, okay?”

There was a hum from the intercom. Everyone in the room stood on alert. “I’m terribly sorry about locking you all here,” an accented voice-modified tone said, “can’t risk you ruining the plan.”

While Ryan debated if he should ask where Hullum and the department heads were or if should he ask about the plan (never hurts to  _try_ ), Ray snorted, “Locking up Sorola and Ramsey in the same broom closet was plain  _mean_ , dude.”

The voice laughed, “Ah, but isn’t that the best place to kiss and make up?”

Barbara looked at the ceiling in faux-innocence, “I thought that was the bedroom.” The voice laughed again. The laughter was so familiar, with gasps, that Ryan wondered if he was close to the owner. Not many people laughed around him. (That’d make this an inside job and Ryan wasn’t surprised.)

Endearing yourself to your captor was one of the most foolish plans ever, Ryan had always thought, so  _of course_  two of OFFRED’s members would do it. They were  _all_  foolish.

“As I said, terribly sorry about locking you up,” the voice continued, “but if you’ll all be so kind as to,” a bookshelf creeped open, like in all of those films (and here Ryan was thinking none of them held a grain of truth), “enter that room there, you’ll even get to meet me! Which will be exciting, I suppose. It’s my job to keep you entertained, after all. Though,” the voice mused, “we don’t really care if some of you die. I mean, I might be a  _little_  sad, but I can’t really do anything about you guys being dim-witted, can I?”

A pause, then quieter, like the voice wasn't speaking towards the mic, “No, but can I?”

A laugh, even quieter, and a reply Ryan couldn’t make out later, the voice was back, ordering them into the room, with a threat of, “Did you know Hullum’s office is actually filled with three types of poisonous gas? It’s fascinating.” So they either did what the voice wanted and might walk straight into a trap or didn’t and might just a die anyway.

The joy of being an Agent.

The bookshelf didn’t lead to a room, rather to a seemingly-endless hallway with many doors, the voice leading them through several doors, all the same as the last.

“Now!” the voice said cheerfully, “just go straight and make yourselves comfortable! I have to-- hmm, spoilers.”

So they walked straight (it wasn’t like they’d  _find_  anything in this maze without help, the voice had even let them open doors in curiosity, but they always ended up looking the same all rooms did) and ended up in a room with a huge oval table, enough chairs for all of the Agents present to steal three to have a nap, if they weren’t so wound up and on alert.

“Terribly sorry,” the voice said, sounding amused, even through the altered voice, “but you must be seated. I’m not allowed in the room otherwise, something about  _emotional shock_ and  _revenge_. I stopped listening around then.” The voice in the background said something that sounded scalding.

Ryan shared a look with Ray, who grumbled but was the first to sit down, realising how much of a trap they walked into. Ryan and Michael followed him, sitting on either of his sides. Meg and Ashley complied next, joined by a frowning Barbara and a seemingly unbothered Gray. Ryan wondered when their numbers had dropped down to single digits, in the beginning of the year, he was fairly certain there had been over fifteen members

As expected, the chairs strapped them down the moment they all sat down so no one could leave.

“Yes, yes,” a familiar voice said as the door behind Ryan opened, “everything is  _fine_. Stop worrying, Jack.”

A voice that Ryan assumed was the so-called Jack replied, “Excuse me for  _knowing you_  and all the ways you always screw up.”

The scarily familiar voice huffed, fond and amused, but offended. “You go make certain Matt isn't dead.”

Jack laughed, “Which one? Scrufflord or  _Asshole_?”

“I thought Scrufflord  _was_  Asshole.”

“No, he's Asshole.  _Asshole_  has more enunciation.”

“Check up on them both then, Jeremy might have killed  _either_  of them by now, honestly.”

Ryan had a feeling Jack shrugged, because the next sentence he heard was a casual, “You wanted it this way,” before Ryan heard the door opening and heels clicking against the floor, becoming fainter by the second.

“Tosser,” the voice muttered, before walking closer to the table, still behind Ryan, though he didn’t need to see the owner of the voice to know  _who it was._

“Y’know, in the films, this is where you ask me questions to keep me busy,” the voice said, amused.

Ray scoffed, “You never liked spy movies.”

The man behind Ryan shrugged (the shifting of cloth could be nothing else), “True. But, still, it  _is_  my job to keep you busy. I gotta do it some way, don’t I?”

Michael groaned, “Either shut up or tell us everything, I’m getting a  _headache_.”

The voice laughed, so painfully  _familiar_  that Ryan’s heart hurt. “You kidnapped our leader so we’re getting him back. Nothing personal, yeah?”

“Leader?” Gray asked, fishing for information in the most obvious way Ryan had ever seen him do it.

Ga-- The voice didn’t seem to mind. “Michael Burns,  _somewhat_  important to B-OWN. He’s American so I nearly didn’t get the mission to get him back. Had to argue with bureaucrats for _months_. Bloody UK.”

Meg frowned, looking him straight in the eyes -- or so Ryan was assuming -- and asked, “So this was all a job?”

“Yeah? I mean, I like you guys all well and good, but a job’s a job.”

The shock was starting to wear off, Ryan noticed, because he was  _furious_. Furious at himself, for not being good enough to notice Gavin was pulling him along the whole time, furious at Hullum for letting him join, because of his own greed, furious at his fellow OFFRED members for never noticing and, most importantly, furious at  _Gavin fucking Free_.

“I wish my hands weren't locked to this chair,” he said, voice lighthearted, “so I could punch you in the  _goddamn face_.”

Gavin laughed, nervous tinted as it always was at Ryan’s threats, and told him, “Jack had a feeling you’d say that. I owe him twenty bucks.”

Honestly, that just made Ryan even angrier. A person he’d never met won over Gavin on how Ryan would react? Not Gavin, the guy  _he’d dated_  for months?

Glad to see this was one-sided, he thought bitterly, knowing that he’d been beat. Gavin had come into his life and Ryan had ignored  _all_  of his instincts, thinking them as just his usual paranoia acting up. Well, he wasn’t going to stand for that anymore, he decided, his “paranoia” had been right. He was going to never ignore it again.

 

* * *

 

Gavin left a few minutes later, once someone called for him at the door, saying, “Yo! British asshole! Time to go, we got the cargo.”

“Always so  _charming_ , Lindsay!” Gavin had called back, but didn’t even say bye to them, already hurrying after her. Ryan had told himself that he was imagining the eyes he’d felt on the back of his head.

Thirty minutes after that, the chairs’ cuffs opened and they’d left the room, to come to face with a sign on the wall that said, in Gavin’s handwriting, “Hullum is this way!” The sign pointed left, so they shrugged and followed it. They’d never get out of the maze without help anyway.

They had, in fact, found Hullum, right next door to Sorola and Geoff, both of whom had flushed faces --Ryan did  _not_  want to know -- and Hullum led them deeper into the tunnels, to check if B-OWN really  _had_  taken Burns -- which they had -- and finally,  _finally_  they were out of the endless hallways.

“I’m going to check up on the Agents in the cafeteria,” Hullum told them, “make certain they’re not dead or causing a riot. You do-- whatever. Stay together, though.”

So all of OFFRED -- plus Sorola and Geoff, later joined by a seemingly hungover Heyman, though Ryan was seriously considering that he’d been drugged -- ended up going to karaoke night.

(Ryan didn’t hate it, but he did end up looking to his right a lot, to tell something to Gavin, only to remember that, right, Gavin was a betrayer, and he’d swallowed down the anger and the resentment and  _the hurt_  -- worst of the three -- and acted like Gavin had never been in his life in the first place. He didn’t think he succeeded.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also i dont agree w/ ryan. his paranoia is not a good thing.


	13. they taped over your mouth, scribbled out the truth with their lies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [crossposted on tumblr](http://blackkristin.tumblr.com/post/133659389125/the-only-roads-are-cul-de-sacs)

A few days after the “hostile takeover” --  _every single time_  Heyman heard it, he rolled his eyes, “Hostile takeover,” he repeated, scoffing, “that’d require a  _takeover_  part of their plan,” -- Hullum called Michael, Barbara and Ryan to his office for a OFFRED meeting and, as they neared the door, Meg and Ashley walked out and waved at them, but didn’t stop to chat. Probably some sort of girlfriend stuff, Ryan thought and dismissed it. It wasn't odd of them to ignore others because they wanted to spend time together. (Ryan couldn’t help but notice that Ashley’s hand on Meg’s waist was dangerously close to the knife Meg always hid there. He tensed up for a fight just in case -- were they angry with him because he never saw  _the asshole_  playing him and all of them? -- but nothing happened.)

Hullum’s office hadn’t changed in the past few days, which Ryan hadn’t honestly expected. It was still the dull and unassuming place it always was, though Ryan eyed the bookshelf with some trepidation. If the  _bookshelf_  did that, what did the rest of the office -- as  _normal_  as it seemed -- do?

“Ah, good, you’re here,” Hullum said, smiling at them softly. Ryan was absolutely sure it was fake, meant to calm them down and make them relax. He didn’t mention it, even as he noticed Michael smiling back, nodding his head in a greeting. (Ryan wondered why Michael’s trust in everyone wasn’t broken, after what happened.  _Ryan’s_  sure felt like it was.)

Ryan took the seat on the farthest right, Barbara sitting next to him and Michael took the only seat left, on the left of her. Did Barbara know how uneasy Ryan was around Michael nowadays? (He knew  _everything_ , he knew all of Ryan’s weaknesses. If he really wanted to, he could  _destroy_  Ryan, and Ryan wasn’t honestly certain if he trusted Michael to  _not_  do it. Not anymore.)

“Now! This is a briefing,” Hullum told them, “Your debriefs a few days ago were all very helpful, but I thought it best to explain the whole situation to lose the  _misconceptions_  about what happened.”

Ah, a way to save face. Ryan honestly didn’t know why he bothered, they’d already seen the  _worst_  of RG-T in a way the lesser Agents had not. Ryan had even thrown up a few times because of those memories. And he  _still_  worked for the organization. (What else did he have left? Go to another Agency, that’d just think that he was a spy for RG-T? Leave RG-T, knowing that eventually they’d find him and put a bullet in his brain, because he held too much valuable information? Honestly, Ryan wasn’t certain he  _could_  live without the constant adrenaline so a normal life was out of the question.)

“We came across Mr. Burns on one of his many business trips to the States. We were certain that he was part of a smuggling ring at the time and thought it best to interrogate him to see what a lead of an Agency thought he was  _doing_ ,” Hullum frowned distastefully, “he, of course, denied all involvement. So we held him hostage while we figured out what the situation was.”

Barbara looked as disbelieving as Ryan felt (Michael just looked vaguely disgusted, but Ryan couldn’t tell if he believed the story or not). Did he expect them to believe that?  _Just_  to investigate, not to get B-OWN’s secrets?

Hullum ignored them.

“A month into our investigation,” yes,  _of course_ you investigated something, “we met Agent Free.”

Barbara frowned, thoughtful, “But  _he_  said he argued for months for the chance to get Burns back.”

Hullum nodded, solemn, “Yes, that makes us think that this wasn’t his main mission, just the last part of it. Most of OFFRED has fallen in battle, which we think is his fault, as well as all the-- unpleasant things,” he looked at Michael, “that have happened to you in particular. We think you -- with Narvaez right after you -- were the next on the list, but you kept evading your death,” Hullum’s mouth twitched upwards, “good job on that.”

“But why did he leave before we were all dead though?” Barbara asked and though the answer was directed towards Hullum, her eyes found Ryan’s.

“Who knows,” Hullum shrugged, “maybe he ran out of time, maybe someone was getting suspicious,” he glanced at Ryan, “maybe Burns was close to admitting something incriminating.”

Ryan thought back to that desperate light in his eyes when Ryan’d thought that the asshole finally realised the extent of his feelings, remembered the quiet murmur of, “Next week,”, but told him that it was all an act, for that would require his ex to have loved him, which Ryan was certain he did not. Maybe he acted that way to throw off Ryan’s scent of the  _real r_ eason.

“Maybe he finally got Burns' location and everything was in place,” he hummed in thought, “the whole thing was done very professionally with no mistakes that’d make the whole thing break down. That’d require a lot of work. And more than just one person.”

Hullum nodded, face sour, “We’re keeping Heyman on probation right now.”

Ah, that must’ve been a blow, Ryan mused, to realise that your on-and-off boyfriend might have been part of an attack on the organization that was your life.

“Electronic helpers?” Ryan asked, instead of the sympathetic words he wanted to.

“Not that we’ve been able to tell,” Hullum told him, “it seems like they only used RG-T electronics and fried the few that would have incriminating evidence, the others were just wiped. Gavin  _had_  been our best so we’re not expecting to find much from them. But we’re looking over them anyway.”

Ryan paused, before asking, dreadfully curious. “Was Heyman drugged that day?”

Hullum nodded, “Funhaus even found out  _how --_ his coffee with rum -- but the surveillance for his room goes dark at some point.”

“And you still think he was a part of it?” Michael asked disbelievingly.

“The fact that he was drugged is the only reason he’s on probation and not  _dead_ , Jones.”

 

* * *

 

Ryan ended up on faux-probation too, though it was more lax -- which was why it was  _faux_. He was allowed to go on missions, just had to go through several more security tests in a day than most Agents in a month, and the amount of missions lessened to a smaller amount and they were never as important as his position on OFFRED dictated.

He ignored it. It gave him time to redecorate his whole room at RG-T and throw all of the-- unnecessary stuff from his room into the empty room his ex-boyfriend used to live in. (Why did he even  _have_  three electric razors?) (One of them had a mahogany pocket knife hidden inside it, a  _JRH_  carved carefully -- in cursive, Gavin always wrote in cursive -- on the wood. He threw away the razor but kept the knife. Weapons weren’t made to be thrown away.)

 

* * *

 

Ryan hated being an assistant teacher for the new Agents. “Don’t punch too hard, no lasting damage, no weapons,” all those  _rules_  about fighting just rubbed him the wrong way. Not to mention walking to the other side of the building just to beat the snot out of the newbies was always so  _boring_.

“Dude,” Ray’s voice said around the corner and Ryan paused in his steps, debating on if he had the time to walk back the way he came before Ray and his conversation partner noticed him.

“You’re taking this all so  _personally_ ,” Ray continued and his voice was getting louder, shit, Ryan didn’t have the time to go anywhere but straight forwards, “I get it, Gavin fucked us -- some more than others,” he snorted -- fuck you, Ray -- then coughed and continued, “but, like, it  _was_  his job. I mean, I’m fucking pissed off at him for trying to kill you and would probably stab him for it, but even I understand that it was his job, we do this  _every day_  of our lives to other people.”

“He tried to kill me,” Michael answered drily as they came around the corner, “and then came to visit me in the medical wing and called me his best friend. After trying to make my death look like an accident. Forgive me for-- h _e_ y, Ryan.”

Ryan nodded in greeting, face impassive, and moved past them. Well, he was in the mood to beat up some poor new trainee now. (After the first broken bone he caused, the teacher told him to punch a dummy to show the moves instead. Ryan broke four of those. The teacher looked despairing.)

 

* * *

 

Ashley and Meg weren’t as easy to ignore as Ray, Michael and Geoff. Mostly because they were more terrifying, slightly because the guys were trying to avoid Ryan as much as Ryan was them ( _especially_  Geoff, Ryan hasn’t even seen a  _glimpse_  of him).

So when Meg and Ashley sought him out, Ryan just told himself that, unless he wanted to be stabbed, he had to act along. Also never leave his room ever.

“Come on, loser,” Meg told him, “we’re going-- actually, we’re not. You’re sulking so we’re going to get drunk.”

“I don’t drink,” he reminded them.

“I never said  _you_  were getting drunk.”

Which was how Ryan ended up in Ashley’s room at RG-T, eating amaretto ice cream -- worst thing ever made -- while Ashley and Meg drank an actual bottle of amaretto beside him. They didn’t seem to like the taste either.

“Do you really not have any mint and chocolate ice cream?” he asked them for the fourth time.

“Yes, Rye, neither of us  _likes_  mint, remember?”

“You don’t like amaretto either,” Ryan told them and they had to concede.

“So,” Ryan finally gave in, “why did you invite me here?”

Meg shot him a quick grin, standing up and moving closer to the TV, “Movie night, of course.”

“Oh,” and then, because he liked torturing himself, “James Bond?”

Ashley’s hold on his fingers tightened and Ryan stared at their hands, feeling like her hands were both the perfect size and too fucking  _small_ , “Oh,  _Rye_ ,” she sighed.

But they  _did_  end up watching James Bond and Ryan stared at the British superspy, loyal to the Queen above all, willing to sacrifice anything for the Crown, a master manipulator and asycophant, and ended up laughing. Ryan had ended up as a Bond girl. That was his life.

 

* * *

 

Geoff and Michael were out drinking one day -- Caleb was kind enough to inform him of that -- when Ray came to talk to him.

“Right,” he said, shifting around uncomfortably, “I’m not for all this emotional shit, which is why I‘ve only ever had one boyfriend in my life, but I wanted to, like, thank you, I guess?”

Ryan blinked at him, utterly lost.

“Like? The codependent shit. I know that Gav only ever told us about the concern to get Michael and I apart or something, maybe to get us against you? I don’t know. But knowing about it and working towards not being codependent -- which Meg told us to get rid of as quick as possible and got our asses in gear -- helped a lot, y’know? Like, I don’t feel like I  _need_ Michael around but I  _like_  having him around more? Because I know it’s a  _choice_ , not a  _chain_? Right. And. Sorry. About the Gavin comment. I mean, not sorry about saying it, because that is my opinion and I’ve been trying to be all fuckin’ opinionated recently, but that you heard it. Yes. Okay.”

He nodded, “Good talk,” and was gone in moments.

 

* * *

 

Eventually, Ray, Geoff and Michael seemed to realise that Ashley and Meg had no problems hanging out with Ryan. Which led to them tagging along when Ashley and Meg forced him into hanging out with them.

“Dude,” Ray said, eating the amaretto ice cream that Meg and Ashley  _still_  bought. He squinted, “Isn’t this Gav’s favourite ice cream?”

Well. That explained why they still bought it, even if they all hated it. Ryan felt more resigned than hurt by this at this point, they all kept things after he’d left, after all. (Ryan still only slept on one side of the bed and the first thing he saw every morning was that small pocket knife.)

“It is,” Meg replied, not even glancing at Ryan to see his reaction, which Ryan honestly appreciated, though he didn't know if  _he_  could be that certain in the others’ reactions as she was in his. Honestly, he didn’t even know if he could trust them, not after-- not after what’d happened. But. He was trying, because he did honestly love them. They were trying and he was trying and it might not end up a success, but Ryan had gotten used to failures recently.


End file.
